The Big Push

A PLANNED 'COMPASSION CENTER' COULD TEST MEDICAL POT LAW

John Sinclair's long strange trip is taking another twist

Arrested in 1969 for giving two joints to an undercover narc, the
poet, writer and political activist paid a heavy price for assuming a
high profile in the counterculture of the 1960s. Sentenced to 10
years, he served 29 months in prison - attracting widespread
attention and a slew of high-profile supporters, most famously the
late John Lennon - before the Michigan Supreme Court heard his appeal
and ruled the state's marijuana law was unconstitutional.

Now, at an age when most people have retired, he's about to join the
vanguard again, preparing to help push the envelope of the state's
medical marijuana law as he and a group of fellow travelers prepare
to open what will be Detroit's first "compassion center."

Planned for the city's Eastern Market, the center is envisioned to
become a place where patients can buy and consume pot in the company
of others - without having to worry about getting hauled away in handcuffs.

"A place of fellowship," is how Sinclair describes the vision. "A
place where people can get their medicine, relax, enjoy music. You
have to have good music."

A few years ago, such a plan might have been written off as some
stoner pipe dream. But when 63 percent of Michigan's voters passed
the ballot measure known as Prop. 1 in 2008, the seeds of change were
planted. The law allowed individuals with a doctor's recommendation
to legally grow and buy pot. It also said that registered caregivers,
who could have as many as five patients, could grow up to 12 plants
for each patient.

Nearly a year after the state officially began accepting applications
from prospective patients, businesses associated with medical
marijuana are budding everywhere.

There are doctors' clinics that specialize in writing the
recommendations necessary to obtain a patient card issued by the
state's Department of Community Health. There are entrepreneurs who
will teach neophytes how to successfully tend cannabis crops. Some
carpenters and plumbers are beginning to specialize in building "grow
rooms" and installing indoor irrigation systems, creating jobs for
skilled tradesmen hard hit by the collapse of the housing market.
Business is booming for garden shops that sell grow lights and other
supplies indoor operations need. Publications like the Michigan
Medical Marijuana Magazine - a glossy monthly packed with ads - are
springing up. Flip through this or any recent issue of Metro Times
and you'll see an abundance of the same type of ads.

In a state with a 15 percent unemployment rate, the law has been a
financial blessing to many. From a business perspective, it
represents a market that is expanding at a mind-boggling pace.

To date, according to the Michigan Department of Community Health
(MDCH), 20,665 applications have been received since April 6, 2009,
with nearly 11,000 patient cards being issued. Nearly 4,700
caregivers have been registered as well. But those numbers don't
fully convey the deluge of interest in recent months. Six months
ago, the department was receiving 400 applications a week from
prospective caregivers and patients; that number is now at 1,000 a
week. Instead of processing these applications within 20 days, as the
law proscribes, it is taking about five times that long.

What is quickly becoming a significant issue is how authorities will
deal with dispensary-like operations where patients can go to
purchase pot from people who aren't their designated caregivers.
Earlier this year, Ypsilanti's Third Coast Seed Co. became the first
enterprise to openly establish a members-only club where medical
marijuana is sold.

The reason that's just now happening, at least in part, is that the
law Michigan voters overwhelmingly approved doesn't directly address
such an enterprise.

Certain aspects of that law are clearly spelled out. If you are a
patient who has received a doctor's recommendation, then you can
legally possess as much as 2.5 ounces of marijuana. You can grow as
many as 12 plants at a time to provide your own medicine, or you can
obtain it elsewhere - from another patient, from your designated
caregiver, or from an illegal dealer. It doesn't matter. The law was
crafted with the idea that legitimate patients should have no
obstacles standing between them and their medicine.

The law is also clear about core aspects regarding caregivers. They
can grow as many as 12 plants for each patient, and can have up to
five patients. If a caregiver also is a patient, that means they can
have as many as 72 plants growing at any one time. With each plant
producing an ounce or more of the potent bud that gets smoked,
growers planting the maximum number of plants allowed under the law
can realistically expect to harvest several pounds every few months.

With medical-grade marijuana selling for between $200 and $400 when
bought by the ounce, and as much as $650 an ounce when sold in
gram-sized increments, which is the way it is done at Third Coast,
there is clearly money to be made.

As many people are quick to point out, though, much more involved
than just money.

Above all else are the patients - people whose very real suffering
compelled Michigan voters to join what is now a total of 14 states in
recognizing that marijuana serves a legitimate medicinal purpose.

But along with the true patients, there are recreational users who
are taking advantage of the new law to grow or buy weed without
breaking the law. Along with specific qualifying conditions specified
in the law - debilitating afflictions such as cancer, MS and AIDS -
there is the catchall of "chronic pain" that, with a bit of effort,
allows those determined enough to obtain a card to succeed with the
assistance of a compliant doctor.

There's also the fact that the law contains what have been described
as "gray areas" that have yet to be tested in court. The most
significant of these involve the idea that caregivers can, at a
price, provide excess product to other caregivers and patients can
sell to other patients. Both of those concepts are key to legally
operating the kind of cooperative venture planned for Detroit.

Also likely to be tested in court are efforts by some jurisdictions
to pass preemptive ordinances that will keep businesses like the one
already existing in Ypsilanti and the one being planned for Detroit
from opening in their communities.

And then there are people such as Sinclair and Wood, longtime smokers
who see passage of the law as a significant step forward, a step they
have happily embraced, but still one that falls short of the desired
goal of having pot legalized.

There is still much sorting out to be done. But that isn't stopping
people from taking the leap into a future that isn't completely certain.

One of them is a guy we'll call Sam.

In From the Cold

Sam doesn't want his real name used for a straightforward reason: For
the past three decades he's been growing pot illegally.

In that regard, it was a matter of a family tradition rolling
forward. His father grew pot, and, although he tried to dissuade Sam
from following in his footsteps, the son did what teenagers often do
and ignored Dad's advice.

He'd taken up gardening while still a kid, and found he had a knack
for it. At one point he realized that if he could grow tomatoes, he
could also produce the pot he began smoking as a teenager.

He eventually became what he calls a "guerilla grower," sneaking onto
the farms of southeastern Michigan under the cover of night to plant
his illegal crop. It was a risky business, transporting his seedlings
to rural locales and then returning monthly to tend them.

"I'd do it between 3 and 4:30 a.m." he says. "Nobody - and I mean
nobody - is up at that time."

There was always the risk of getting caught. And with that risk came
stress, but there was also an undeniable thrill that came from
sneaking through fields in the dead of night.

The time came, though, when all that risk taking caught up with him.
Police raided his home, seizing four of his vehicles and "most of the
contents of my house." He was charged with felony drug trafficking,
but the charges were eventually dropped when a judge learned that the
raid on his house was conducted without a warrant. Still, his freedom
came at a cost of about $15,000 in lawyers' fees.

Now in his 40s, Sam lives in the metro Detroit area, where he runs a
small business. He doesn't want to be any more specific than that.
Years of trying to stay below law enforcement's radar have made him a wary man.

Until recently, he says, he had never even typed the word "marijuana"
into his computer's search engine, afraid that doing so might draw
the attention of some government agency that could be monitoring Web traffic.

Even so, he's taking the risk of talking with a reporter because he
wants people to understand - even though he knows it is difficult for
nonsmokers to comprehend - that it was never all about the money. He
truly enjoys the growing of pot, and then enjoying the fruits of his
labor. Not just the mind-altering effects, but also savoring its
smell and flavor, the way wine connoisseurs relish sipping a vintage cabernet.

Which is why, even after the expense of fighting the felony arrest
and having his property seized, and after a couple of drug-related
misdemeanor arrests - he continued his guerrilla forays into fields
under the cover of dark.

Early on in his career, he says, 100 percent of his income came from
growing and selling pot. After his bust he scaled operations way
back, but continued to grow enough for himself and a small,
tight-knit circle of friends.

As Sam talks, sitting on the kitchen table is a quart-size mason jar
filled with the bud that he has grown. A half-smoked joint sits
nearby. His modest home is infused with the incense-like fragrance of
smoked weed.

With hair that drops down to his chest when not pulled back in a
ponytail, he has the air of a '60s flower child. He's proud of his
skill as a grower, and of the high quality of the aromatic bud that
he produces.

After years of hiding his guerilla growing from virtually everyone he
knew, Sam is on the verge of stepping into the legal world of medical
marijuana. He's applied to be both a registered patient and a
caregiver. Already, he says, more people want to designate him to be
a caregiver than he can legally handle.

Shoulder and knee pain qualified him for the patient card, he says.
Asked if he really needs pot to deal with the problem, his answer is
canny: "Not necessarily," he says, then adds, "but that doesn't
necessarily mean I don't need it."

This much is certain though: "Either way, I would be smoking."

His ambiguity regarding the medical necessity of his pot smoking
reveals an important fact about the effects of the law's
implementation: A certain percentage of people getting their cards
are doing so simply because it allows them to smoke recreationally
without having to worry about getting busted.

The same can be said, at least to some extent, about people who are
growers obtaining their caregiver cards, says Sam.

Under the law, for someone to qualify as a caregiver, they must first
have at least one person who will go on record as their patient. Once
they are legally established - and don't have much worry that their
grow will be raided - they can always sell surplus product on the black market.

"I'm sure there are people who are doing that," he says.

His intent, however, is to become strictly legal. What his patients
don't buy - what's referred to as "overage" - he plans to sell to
operations such as the one being run by Ypsilanti's Third Coast Seed
Co. and the planned compassion center Sinclair and Wood are preparing
to open in Detroit.

"That ability to sell our overage, that will be like our bonus
check," says Sam.

Unlike other aspects of the law, however, the ability to do so is not
clearly defined.

"That's a legal theory at this point," says Detroiter Tim Beck, a
marijuana activist who worked with lawyers from Lansing's prestigious
Dykema law firm to craft the language in the ballot measure that
voters approved in 2008.

At some point, Beck and others expect, that theory will be tested in court.

Sam realizes that coming in from the cold world of the black market -
identifying himself to the state as both a smoker and a grower -
carries a risk if he follows through with the plan to peddle the
overage to other caregivers.

"The question," he says, "is, 'How do you stretch the money-making
aspect while staying within the parameters of the law?'"

By his calculation, after overhead is deducted, he could net as much
as $65,000 a year legally doing something he loves.

That number could be lower if the price of "product" comes down.
There are already people selling high-grade pot for as little as $200
an ounce. But Sam is fine with that.

And though apprehensive about what the future might hold, he also
feels liberated.

"I'm not sure what's going to happen, but me and some others are
willing to stick our necks out and take a chance. But then again,
that's something we've been doing for a long time."

Public Spirit

Just how much things have already changed as a result of Prop. 1's
passage was made clear on a recent Wednesday evening in Detroit.

A woman who goes by the moniker Ms. Chocolate was holding a
compassion club meeting in Detroit. About 20 people were in
attendance. Nearly all were there to learn about the law and what
they needed to do obtain their patient cards.

What makes this meeting particularly notable is its location: the
Sherwood Forest branch of the Detroit Public Library on the city's west side.

Think about that for a moment: A group of prospective pot smokers
gathering to talk openly about using marijuana in a public library.

Along with providing information, Ms. Chocolate is looking to make
some sales. It's not weed she's peddling, though. She has copies of
the latest issue of Michigan Medical Marijuana Magazine - which
features an "exclusive interview" with rapper Snoop Dogg on the
cover. She informs attendees that the library has just agreed to put
a copy of the publication at its magazine rack so patrons can peruse
it for free. Also available in the library's reference section is a
copy of a recipe book she wrote so that those who want to make
marijuana-infused foods will also have that resource available to them.

Those who would like a copy to take home can purchase one from Ms.
Chocolate for $15. Sales help provide her with "gas money," she says.

Over the course of 90 minutes, she covers much ground. The
presentation is no-nonsense, with an emphasis on the practical. As
evidenced by the cookbook, she is particularly knowledgeable about
the issue of how to take medication without having to light up a joint.

She cautions those who want to try that approach to not make the
mistake of having an entire meal comprised of marijuana-laced dishes.

"You don't want to have a meal of medicated meatloaf with medicated
mac and cheese with medicated cornbread," she says.

She also points out that, unlike smoking, mixing medication with food
results in a delayed reaction. Instead of the instant effect
obtained when smoked, pot, when eaten, takes about a half hour to
kick in. The upside - in addition to avoiding the harmful aspects of
smoke - is that the effects can last longer.

She also explains how different strains of pot produce different
results. "Indica will knock you on your butt," she says. "Sativa will
keep you up. So you have to be aware of what you are using."

In that regard, choosing a knowledgeable caregiver is important.
Noting that it was likely that there were a few caregivers in
attendance (there were), Ms. Chocolate told the prospective patients
that if someone approaches you, "Don't be too quick to sign up. You
want to make sure the two of you are compatible."

Find out if they grow themselves, she says, because not all of them
do. "You don't want street-grade," she warns. And beware of
prospective caregivers who are just looking at patients as a source
of income. "A lot of people," she says, "are only looking at this as
a cash cow."

And even though these meetings are a place for patients and
caregivers to hook up, any actual trading, selling or use of seeds,
plant clones or medicine is absolutely forbidden.

This is, after all, a library.

"And, let's be honest," she adds. "We don't really know who is here.
We don't know who might be a cop, who might be DEA."

Or, for that matter, a reporter. In this case though, that reporter
announces his presence, and asks at the end how many people showed up
to learn about becoming patients. The results of this quick survey,
and several conversations that take place once the meeting breaks up,
give some clue as to just how many people aren't looking at this law
as a way to get high for fun.

Three of the people need canes to get around. Even some of the
particularly fit-looking people have serious problems, several as the
result of auto accidents that caused painful back and neck injuries.
One after another gives testimony to the fact that they find pot a
superior alternative to opiate-based prescription drugs such as
Vicodin and Oxycontin.

One man, a 52-year-old former security guard who says he's still
suffering the effects of an auto accident that occurred nine years
ago, explains, "There's a lot of people like me who don't like to
take pills. The marijuana just works better. If it wasn't for that
weed, I'd be in a world of trouble."

He says he's come to this meeting because he's interested in learning
how to grow his own medicine. There's also a 40-year-old former
teacher - the victim of a car accident involving a drunk driver - who
says he's in so much pain he can't concentrate. Prescription
medicines don't do the trick. "I'm just trying to find the right way
to control this pain," he says.

There is at least one caregiver here on this night. A recreational
smoker, he used to grow his own pot but stopped several years ago
because he found it too "paranoia-inducing."

Tall and slender, neatly dressed and well spoken, he says that he
began growing again last year. "The day it became legal, I had my
paperwork in," he says. He has one patient - a family member who has
AIDS. He's at the meeting to "screen" potential patients.

He's looking for two or three additional patients with "legitimate
health issues," he says. He's also looking for people he thinks he'll
be compatible with. "That's important," he says, "because if I take
someone on as a patient, that ties me to them, both legally and
beyond that. I'm responsible for making sure they get their medicine."

That medicine is grown in a closet-sized space at his home in
Detroit. He says his intent is to "keep the price under the street
value." One thing he finds interesting since the law has been
implemented is the number of "middlemen seeking to make a fast buck
off of sick people."

As for himself, he has no intention of applying for a patient card.
The way he sees it, the caregiver status provides enough cover to
keep him protected. He's allowed to legally grow and possess the
weed, so the chances of getting busted for using, he thinks, are remote.

Growing Smaller

One of the reasons that caregiver has little fear of being arrested
is that the Michigan law was written with the intent of keeping
production limited to a small scale, says Detroit activist Beck.

The idea of maintaining a ratio of one caregiver to every five
patients, and limiting the total number of plants any one person
could grow to 72, was that such operations wouldn't be large enough
to warrant the attention of federal drug agents.

Hard-line conservative George W. Bush was still president at the time
and, no matter how many states might make medical marijuana legal,
its cultivation, sale and possession remain a federal crime.

The Obama administration has promised to honor state laws, but that
could change if he's voted out in a few years. Whatever the attitude
of the person occupying the White House, explains Beck, the crafters
of Michigan law wanted to do everything they could to limit the
likelihood that black-helmeted Drug Enforcement Agency teams would be
kicking down the doors of Michiganders only interested in providing
medicine to a handful of patients each.

Which is why, he says, California-style dispensaries - where any
card-holding patient can walk into a storefront business and purchase
pot - were not included in the Michigan law.

"If nobody's making big money, then you are not going to attract the
feds," explains Beck. "Some dispensaries in California are making
millions of dollars. We didn't want to do anything like that so we
could avoid inviting the DEA to come in and destroy the ability of
people to get the medicine they need."

Instead, the crafters of the law envisioned enabling people like
Cathy Hinkle, a caregiver, patient and activist who lives in the
small town of Mio in Oscoda County.

Hinkle, in a phone interview, says she saw addiction to prescription
drugs decimate the body and eventually kill one close family member.
She saw alcohol ruin the life of another.

Collecting unemployment after being laid off from a factory job, she
suffers from hepatitis C and a form of muscular dystrophy, both of
which are conditions the state's medical marijuana act covers. In
addition to serving as president of the Michigan Medical Marihuana
Education and Defense Organization, she's also a caregiver. She says
she charges patients $200 an ounce for their medicine, and bristles
at the idea that some people are charging as much as $500 and ounce.

"Those people are giving the whole thing a bad name," she says. "For
some people, it's all about the money."

As part of her role as an activist, she fields calls from patients
who say they are illegally being harassed by cops,

"There is," she says, "a lot of ignorance out there on the part of
law enforcement."

Hinkle seems like exactly the kind of person activist Beck says the
law was intended to address, both as a caregiver and a patient:
someone who operates on a small scale, only recovering what it costs
her to produce and deliver medicine to her patients.

"The DEA doesn't have the resources to root out small medical
providers," he adds. "So we intentionally created a system of small
operators. In no way, shape of form was this designed for people to
make big money. Just the opposite."

That's also why activists in the state's medical marijuana movement
railed against proposed legislation introduced last year by state
Sen. Wayne Kuipers (R-Holland). Kuipers' bill attempted to, in part,
mandate that medical marijuana production be limited to 10
state-approved operations.

One problem with that is such large-scale efforts would be easy
targets "if another jihadist like Bush gets elected," says Beck.

Kuipers also proposes making doctors write prescriptions for medical
marijuana instead of just making recommendations, as the current law
dictates. One problem with the senator's proposal in this case is
that federal law prohibits doctors from prescribing pot.

As Beck notes, the Kuipers bill has virtually no chance of gaining
approval because the medical marijuana law, which became a statute
through the ballot process, can only be amended by a three-quarters
majority in both the state House and Senate.

"That kind of majority is almost impossible to get," says Beck.
"Kuipers knows that. He's just grandstanding because he's running for
Congress in a conservative district and he's trying to get votes by
making it look like he's tough on drugs. But he can't be serious
about actually getting anything done."

While certain of the futility of Kuipers' efforts, Beck isn't so sure
there'll being widespread acceptance of efforts to duplicate the
Third Coast Seed Co. model.

Club Cannabis

Jaime Lowell and Darrell Stavros sit around a small oval table in a
second floor office at the "compassion center" they helped launch in
downtown Ypsilanti at the start of this year.

The run-of-the-mill building, which looks like an old house, formerly
provided office space for a mortgage company. It seems somehow
fitting that one facet of the housing market collapse has been
replaced by a business that appears to have the trajectory of a
rocket taking off.

And the guys at the Third Coast Seed Co. have gotten in at the
earliest of stages.

In terms of the business they've opened, they are doing in the open
what they say 30 or 40 others are doing surreptitiously.

And what they are doing is helping provide pot to certified patients
who haven't necessarily designated anyone at this private,
members-only club as their caregivers.

When it's suggested that they are operating in a gray area of the
law, Lowell and Stavros disagree. They say the law clearly allows the
sort of patient-to-patient transfers that occur here.

Prices - posted on a menu - range from $8 to $25 a gram. At the top
end, that translates to as much as $650 a pound. To critics who carp
about that kind of premium price, Lowell and Stavros point out that
their business comes with the kind of overhead that caregivers
growing a small number of plants don't have to deal with.

On the table in the office where Lowell and Stavros sit down with a
reporter, there is a scale and a label maker used to designate the
small packets of weed that have names like "Super Silver Haze." Bits
of bright-green pot fleck the table. Empty mason jars, which help
keep product fresh and moist, line the shelves of an open closet.

But don't get the wrong impression.

"We don't have rooms full of bales of pot," says Lowell, a
42-year-old former real estate appraiser.

What they've done, Lowell explains, is create an alternative way for
legally designated patients to conveniently obtain the medicine they
need. It doesn't replace the patient-caregiver relationship spelled
out in the law, he says. Rather, it "supplements" it.

It ends up being a situation where everybody wins. Patients get easy
access to medicine. The downtown gets an economic boost in the form
of increased foot traffic and a business occupying a formerly vacant
building. And Lowell and Stavros get what they hope will be a viable business.

As part of that model, they rent out space in their building to what
most would call a head shop but what Lowell refers to as an
"alternative medical equipment" outlet, where customers can purchase
hand-blown glass pipes and other paraphernalia.

A company selling grow lights has a display in the lobby. And a firm
looking to specialize in providing security systems for growing
operations has set up shop there as well. Everyone working in the
building has a patient card, says Lowell.

Cost of becoming a member of the club is $12 a year. Lowell and
Stavros don't want to say for the record how many members they've
attracted so far. "We don't want to give fuel to anyone who might
want to screw with us," offers Lowell by way of explanation.

Along with running their club, they also spend time visiting other
municipalities, attempting to ease any concerns officials elsewhere
might have about a similar operation opening in their town.

If they are right in their assertion, and this club is completely
legal, then what they are doing here will be duplicated in other
towns. And, in fact, that is already happening, with similar
high-visibility clubs springing up in Ann Arbor, Williamston and
Traverse City within the past month or so.

The flip side of that equation are municipalities such as Livonia,
which in December amended a zoning ordinance to include a ban on
enterprises that are contrary to local, state or federal laws. The
key word there is federal, because anything having to do with the
production, sale or use of marijuana is illegal. A handful of other
municipalities have either considering or have passed similar ordinances.

The legal director of the Michigan American Civil Liberties Union,
Michael Steinberg, says his group is keeping a close eye on the
situation to make sure that these laws aren't used to keep legitimate
patients from having access to the medicine as provided for in the state law.

Detroit attorney Matt Abel, who has a long career built around
defending people accused of marijuana-related crimes, says his phone
is ringing off the hook these days. Along with the usual types of
clients, he's daily fielding calls from people seeking his
consultation on how to set up marijuana-related businesses.

(The prospect that Californians will approve a ballot measure that
completely legalizes pot in that state has medical marijuana growers
there increasingly looking to Michigan as a new market, since, as one
West Coast grower recently told Metro Times, Michigan "is considered
virgin territory.")

The Third Coast model, Abel says, certainly appears to have the law
on its side. Informed as it is, though, his opinion is just that - an
opinion. As with attempts by some cities to pass ordinances
attempting to keep marijuana-related businesses out of their towns,
no one will know with complete certainty what is legal and what is
not unless a case ends up in front of a judge.

That's a possibility Sinclair and Wood say they - with the help of
Lowell and Stavros and others - are preparing to face as they pursue
plans to open a compassion center in Detroit's Eastern Market.

Two Sides of a Coin

Sitting down to breakfast at a Coney Island restaurant in Eastern
Market, Sinclair and Wood - who say they've been close friends for a
dozen years or more - are a contrast in styles. In his early 40s,
Wood, with jet-black hair pulled back in a ponytail and Jack
Nicholson's expressive eyebrows, is a compact bundle of intense energy.

Sinclair, at 68, is low-key and relaxed, easily working his way
through a New York Times crossword puzzle in between talking with us
and digging into an omelet with double feta cheese.

As they discuss plans for their venture, Wood focuses on
organizational plans, gathering together what will be - at least
initially - a collective of 10 caregiver-growers who will form the
heart of this enterprise. He's the nuts-and-bolts logistics guy.

Sinclair, who's spent much of his time in Amsterdam in recent years,
is the philosopher.

Both have long been unapologetic pot smokers, disdainful of any law
that tries to tell them what they can or cannot do when it comes to
what they choose to inhale or consume.

But now Sinclair has already obtained his patient's card, and Wood is
waiting for the state to process his application to become both a
patient and registered caregiver.

Both also think pot should be legal, period, regardless of why
someone wants to use it. But the medical marijuana law, they say, has
created a giant crack in the decades-old effort to demonize weed, and
they are going to take advantage of that opening.

"I've always thought of pot as medicinal," says Sinclair. "I don't
know how anyone could handle the nightmare of post-industrial society
without it."

There's a mischievous gleam behind the lenses of his wire-rimmed
glasses when he talks, saying with a grin, "I like being a patient. I
might be a sick motherfucker, but I'm not a criminal any more."

Wood, on the other hand, seems more fueled by outrage over some
outside force trying to dictate how he lives his life.

Both vent about what Sinclair describes as the "massive police
apparatus" that has been fed by the war on drugs for the past 40 years.

And while Wood has spent hours working out the potential costs
associated with their planned compassion center, Sinclair says with
complete believability, "I don't look at it as a business."

This is coming from a man who spent nearly two-and-half years in a
maximum security prison, vilified as a danger to society and denied
bond while his case was being appealed, all because he handed a few
grams' worth of plant to an undercover narcotics officer.

And yet, as they sit here, it is with the realization that they will
soon be testing the limits of Michigan's medical marijuana law. Wood
says he's already given a copy of his house key to a friend, with
instructions on how to care for his pets and a list of people to call
if he ends up getting arrested.

They have chosen the place where they are going to make their stand,
in a building not far from this restaurant.

It will be a place where people can purchase and consume the medicine
Michigan's voters have said they are legally entitled to use. A place
where they can learn to grow that medicine for themselves. A place
where they can relax and listen to music and enjoy the fellowship of
other patients.

How the Detroit Police and the Wayne County Prosecutor's Office will
respond isn't known. The authorities themselves don't seem to have
figured out how to handle a situation they haven't yet had to confront.

"Our office has attended trainings offered by the Prosecuting
Attorney's Association of Michigan on medical marijuana and related
issues," Prosecutor Kym Worthy said in a statement e-mailed to Metro
Times. "We plan on participating in future trainings and then
formulating a policy on this issue."

And while Worthy formulates a policy, Sinclair and Wood are forging
ahead with their plan, making no apologies for expecting to get paid
in return for investing themselves in this venture, and for taking
the risk that comes with testing the law's limits.

"For me, as a business guy, I don't expect the payoff to be huge,"
says Wood. "This isn't easy money. But it's about more than just the
money for us."

"When we talk about this being a compassion center," says Sinclair,
"that's not just some semantic trick" to distinguish what we're doing
from establishing a dispensary. "There is a true ideological side to
what we are doing."

It is also, he says, about "not having to go sneak into some alley
anymore if I want to smoke. [In the 1960s] I set out to challenge the
law and ended up in prison for it. I went through some severe shit
for smoking some weed, but I succeeded in challenging the
constitutionality of the laws that were in place at that time."

This time around, he says, "We're not looking for trouble. Just the
opposite. We're trying to take the trouble out of this whole thing."

"The thing is," says Wood, "there are some of us who are stepping up
to define this law before someone else defines it for us."