MICHIGAN'S MURKY MARIJUANA LAW SOWS ARRESTS, CONFUSION

Police Raid Highlights Problems Many Face

Michigan's medical marijuana law has patients fearing arrest while
police say they're unsure of who can legally possess or supply the drug.

In several instances, police have arrested patients, confiscated
their marijuana, conducted searches that turned out to be improper
and seized trailer-loads of cultivation gear because of gray areas in
the state law that allows medical marijuana, Southfield attorney
Michael Komorn said.

The legal problems spawned by the law are so great that defense
attorneys have begun specializing in medical marijuana cases, with
one top 10 Michigan law firm devoting an area of practice to it.

"Police across the state are either confused or resisting compliance
with the medical marijuana law," staff attorney Dan Korobkin of the
American Civil Liberties Union said.

Some medical users lack proper paperwork or have more plants than
allowed, Roseville Deputy Chief James Berlin said. But mistakes are
made, Berlin said.

"We may spend three weeks investigating, and then bust in and
traumatize people, only to find out they're legal."

When narcotics investigators burst in last month on Richard Brace in
Hazel Park, he didn't have the state card approving him to use
medical marijuana that he'd applied for Jan. 9.

Brace, 66, said he was baby-sitting his 7-year-old granddaughter when
he heard yelling outside.

"I was getting ready to put her to bed, and all at once, there's a
bam-bam-bam, 'Police!' Just as I open the door, they shove that ram
through and totally shattered my storm door, all over the living room
floor -- even got some glass on my granddaughter," he said.

After being handcuffed and questioned, Brace said he finally talked
police out of arresting him by bringing out the paperwork showing
he'd applied for his official medical marijuana identification card.
As of Wednesday, he still hadn't received it.

Across Michigan, medical marijuana patients like Brace, as well as
caregivers -- those allowed to provide marijuana to patients -- are
waiting months for the state to issue the registry identification
cards that prove they can legally possess the drug.

The backlog in Lansing is so bad, in part because of staff cutbacks,
that cards went out last week to people who applied in early
December, the Michigan Department of Community Health said.

Without the cards, patients and caregivers risk arrest and
confiscation of marijuana by police, who for decades declared all
marijuana users to be enemies in the war on drugs.

As of last week, nearly 21,000 Michiganders had applied to be
approved medical marijuana patients or caregivers, the Department of
Community Health said.

As a temporary card, a copy of the application can "serve as a valid
registry identification" if the actual card isn't available after 20
days, the state's Web site says. But dozens of approved patients and
caregivers have had their medicine seized by police, attorney Michael
Komorn said. Many police departments -- including Roseville's --
don't accept the application paperwork as proof, Komorn said.

"If they don't have a card and they're in possession of marijuana,
they're coming to jail," Roseville Deputy Chief James Berlin said.
"And if they applied for the card, we'll let the judge decide" if a
law was broken.

According to state law, "Any registered patient who possesses a
permissible quantity of marijuana -- up to 2.5 ounces -- can't be
arrested and can't have their marijuana taken away," with some
exceptions, such as smoking while in a public place or on school
grounds, said Dan Korobkin, a lawyer with the American Civil Liberties Union.

Still, "I advise my clients, 'Don't tell anybody you're a patient or
caregiver. Don't tell anybody you're growing this,' " Korobkin said.
"Because the police treat this as if it's all illegal."

In the raid on Brace's house in Hazel Park, "They said they were
looking for a dealer. I said you've got to be joking," the retired
optical-supply salesman said. He has spinal stenosis, a painful back
ailment that he said is eased by marijuana.

Police let him keep the half-ounce of marijuana he revealed in a
drawer, but without explanation, they took a small amount from his
basement, Brace said. He was left to repair his door and a shattered
sense of security.

That raid was "a waste of police time and taxpayers' money," Hazel
Park Lt. Michael Kolp said. Afterward, the police involved -- from
the Hazel Park force and an Oakland County narcotics team --
"realized it was a medical marijuana case," Kolp said.

"The problem is, we have no way to know that in advance," so police
must treat every raid "like it's a drug house" with armed dealers
inside, he said.

A glitch in Michigan's medical marijuana statute is that legal
experts generally say that it forbids dispensaries -- storefronts
that sell marijuana to patients, Wayne State University law professor
Robert Sedler said.

Sedler, an expert on constitutional law, returned last week from
suburban Los Angeles, where "all we saw were dispensaries,
practically on every corner," he said.

In Michigan, "People have to grow it themselves, so there always will
be an issue: Are they growing this for medical use" or to sell on the
street? he said.