MICHIGAN GOES TO POT

Medical Marijuana Law Takes Effect Saturday

Joel Schmidt was wasting away from hepatitis C, but he was afraid
that using marijuana, the only thing that made his treatment
bearable, would get him arrested. So he left his family and moved to
California where he could use the drug legally.

"I didn't want to get in trouble, but mostly I didn't want to get my
family in trouble," Schmidt said, "so I left."

The pills his doctor prescribed were meant to boost his immune system
and keep his liver functioning, but Schmidt couldn't take them. They
would build up in his stomach for days until finally they induced
long fits of vomiting, making it impossible to eat. Only when taken
with a few tokes did the pills work, Schmidt discovered.

Schmidt has moved back home to Coloma, now that he knows he will be
protected from prosecution under the new Michigan Medical Marijuana
Act.

The law takes full effect Saturday. On that date, the Michigan
Department of Community Health will start issuing registration cards
that will allow qualifying patients and designated caregivers to grow
and possess limited amounts of marijuana.

Patients with a doctor's recommendation have been allowed to use the
drug since Dec. 4, one month after the law was approved in a state
referendum. But the MDCH has kept no tabs on who is using the drug.
Without a patient registration card to show police, any patient can
be arrested for possessing marijuana.

How It Works

As the drug becomes legal for medicinal purposes, "compassion clubs"
are popping up around the state - small local support groups for
medical marijuana users.

Cary Spradlin of Decatur is in one local club. Spradlin said he
injured his back at work five years ago, and underwent a spinal
fusion on four of his vertebrae with eight steel rods put in his
back. He has suffered persistent back pain ever since.

In January, after five mostly bed-ridden years of taking pills that
made him "like a zombie," and caused migraine headaches and insomnia,
Spradlin said, he started treating his pain with marijuana.

Like Schmidt, Spradlin was unable to find a local doctor to write a
recommendation. So they both go to a pain clinic in Southfield, where
a doctor gives them the recommendation they need.

They will soon get cards from the MDCH allowing them to carry up to
2.5 ounces of marijuana, smoke in a private place, and grow up to 12
plants for themselves in a locked, closed room. They can pay a $100
fee and register for the cards starting Saturday.

The new regulations are scaled back from a draft released in
December. The original proposed regulations drew major objections
from the state's medical marijuana community.

The draft had provisions for inspections, inventories and other
intrusive features that many said would compromise patients' and
caregivers' confidentiality.

The MDCH took an earful at a Jan. 5 public hearing, and dropped the
rules.

"What they did was brought it in line with the law itself. We're very
pleased," said Greg Francisco, executive director of the Michigan
Medical Marijuana Association, which was one of the main backers of
last year's medical marijuana referendum.

Francisco, who lives in Paw Paw, was among the those who blasted the
draft at the Jan. 5 hearing and appealed to department officials to
rewrite the rules in accordance with act's guidelines.

The act only empowers the MDCH to do three things: set fees for ID
cards, set procedures for processing applications, and set procedures
for adding medical conditions to be covered under the law.

Some of the illnesses covered in the law include cancer, HIV-AIDS,
and glaucoma, or anything causing "severe and chronic pain."

Doctors Afraid to Approve

Locally, there are few doctors willing to write recommendations,
mostly out of fear that by doing so they are helping their patients
break federal laws, Francisco suggested.

No matter how state law treats the use of marijuana, having the drug
is still a federal offense.

"Most physicians are pretty nervous. Most don't know they're
protected," Francisco said, "A lot of them are just taking a
wait-and-see approach."

But the law says doctors cannot be sanctioned by the state or any
medical licensing body, he said. And the U.S. Supreme Court in 2003
let stand a ruling by California's Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals
permitting physicians to recommend marijuana to patients.

Francisco said there are just few doctors in Southwest Michigan who
are signing recommendations.

"They're keeping pretty quiet about it, but they're here," he
said.

Rick Johansen, medical director for the Berrien County Health
Department, said he doesn't know any local doctors recommending
medical marijuana.

"I think the vast majority of physicians are going to refuse to take
part in this," Johansen said.

Unanswered Questions

The activists who pushed the Michigan Medical Marijuana Act scored a
big victory in November. The referendum passed with 63 percent of the
vote, including a majority in every county.

But law enforcement and pubic health officials at the time warned
about trouble spots in the law, and some of those issues still have
not been addressed. The biggest unanswered question is where the
marijuana is to come from. The law makes it legal for a caregiver or
patient to buy marijuana, but selling it remains illegal.

The law assumes most marijuana will be homegrown, but makes no
prohibition against buying it off the street. Either way, medical
officials worry because there is no oversight.

"There's no dose control for this; it's silly," said Duane McBride,
chairman of the county Board of Health.

"There's no FDA for this," said Theresa Green, county director of
community health planning.

A patient or caregiver can grow up to 12 plants per patient, and a
caregiver can serve up to five patients, but the law doesn't prevent
caregivers from "pooling" their resources into single sites that
could produce enough to support a profitable illegal operation,
Berrien County Prosecutor Art Cotter said.

John Targowski, a criminal defense attorney in Kalamazoo who
specializes in drug cases, said legal challenges are bound to spring
up around the issue of combined growing operations.

"(Caretakers) will be looking for creative ways to be able to grow
enough that they can make a profitable operation. They're probably
going to try to form some sort of entity," Targowski said, "I don't
know how it would work, or if it would work. ... My guess is that
will end up being litigated through the Michigan appeals courts up
through the Michigan Supreme Court."

Police will have trouble with the medical marijuana law in traffic
stops, said Berrien County Sheriff Paul Bailey.

Normally, if an officer pulls over a driver and suspects the driver
is high on marijuana, the officer can get a search warrant. If the
drug is found in the car and a drug test later turns up positive, the
driver can be charged with driving impaired.

But for a medical marijuana user, "turning up positive is not
enough," Bailey said. Any medical marijuana user would likely fail
the test, since the drug leaves traces in the bloodstream for up to
30 days.

Officers will need more sophisticated sobriety testing to prove in
court that the driver was under the influence.

"We'll have to do more observation now. We'll have to have better,
closer documentation of their behavior and their driving," Bailey
said. "It'll take much more training."