DESPITE VOTE, MEDICAL MARIJUANA NOT COMING TO FERNDALE ANY TIME SOON

FERNDALE -- Even though Carl Swanson won approval from city voters to
dispense medical marijuana -- and state voters decriminalized the
drug for registered patients last month -- he still won't be open for
business anytime soon.

The new state medical marijuana law is in conflict with the ordinance
city voters passed for Swanson's National Organization for Positive
Medicine, said City Attorney Dan Christ.

"My opinion is that it is preempted by the state (law)," Christ
said.

Christ recently issued a legal opinion for city police and officials
on the issue.

Swanson, a disbarred Michigan attorney, lives in Boston, Mass. He
made no public appearances on behalf of the city ordinance he
proposed in the Nov. 4 election, drawing suspicion from city elected
officials.

Ferndale Police Capt. Timothy Collins said Swanson's group can expect
legal resistance.

"If he tries to do what his ordinance says he will do, he will meet
with every legal roadblock we can put up," Collins said.

Collins added that the details of the Swanson ordinance are far more
telling of his intentions than was the relatively brief description
in the ballot language.

"His ordinance basically says that Ferndale will be the epicenter for
distribution of marijuana throughout the country and
internationally," Collins said. "I think the electorate only looked
at the surface of the issue nd didn't do their homework."

The ordinance allows Swanson to distribute medical marijuana if he is
able to obtain "court orders" to carry out dispensing the drug to
"sick patients."

Mayor Craig Covey, who favors decriminalizing marijuana, said Swanson
wants to come to Ferndale and get a court order to allow him to open
for business.

"But we believe at this point the state law will supersede anything
he wants to do," Covey said. "It is the tentative opinion of our city
attorney, regardless of any success that Mr. Swanson may have, that
he will still be subject to state law which does not permit the sale
of marijuana."

Covey is also concerned residents or visitors may get into trouble
under the false impression marijuana use is now "more legal" in Ferndale.

"It is still illegal to possess, grow or use marijuana except under
the new state (law), which is just for folks with certain medical
conditions," Covey said.

Additionally, federal law still bans the use, possession and sale of
marijuana anywhere in the United States, including states such as
California where medical marijuana is decriminalized and the drug
sold to patients. Federal agents still prosecute marijuana cases in
those and other states. Michigan is the 13th state to decriminalize
the drug.

Swanson intends to move to Michigan and ask a state court in February
to rule in his favor, according to The Associated Press.

"We are going for a standing court order, and I will seek the same in
federal court," he said. "I don't know what the courts will do. The
courts would have to read my law and state law together somehow and
come up with some kind of ruling to make this work."

The new state medical marijuana law goes into effect in the spring,
but doesn't address the issue of medical marijuana sales.

The law allows a patient registered through the Michigan Department
of Public Health with a doctor's prescription to possess up to 2.5
ounces of pot and cultivate up to 12 marijuana plants.