MAY MEDICAL MARIJUANA DISPENSARIES GET THE TEST CASE THEY SEEK

The Compassionate Care Center of Michigan in Dryden is angling for a
legal fight as medical marijuana dispensaries that have popped up
across Michigan await their first test case.

The Center, in an unmarked, upstairs apartment in this tiny southern
Lapeer County community, exists in the margins of the law that voters
overwhelmingly approved in 2008 legalizing the medical use of marijuana.

It's a co-op of sorts, and some of its members cheerfully admit that
medical marijuana dispensaries want to test their legality in Michigan courts.

May they get their wish.

Michigan's "Medical Marihuana Act" needs clarification.

As approved by voters, and under administrative rules written by the
Michigan department of Community Health, the law has no provisions
for medical marijuana dispensaries.

The law does allow patients registered with the state to grow up to
12 marijuana plants for their own use, and possess up to 2.5 ounces
of dried marijuana. Registered caregivers may grow up to 12 plants
for each of a maximum of five patients, as long as the caregivers are
registered to do that for their specific patients.

Caregivers may not sell the marijuana they grow, but the law does
allow them to receive compensation for the service they provide.

There's the dispensary loophole.

At the Dryden dispensary and others in Michigan, the operators say
they are merely selling to registered medical marijuana patients the
excess product that caregivers have on hand.

Patients with their state of Michigan marijuana cards are arriving
from far and wide to get the herbal drug their doctors have
recommended to treat their medical conditions, such as chronic pain.

The state health department does not take a stand on these
dispensaries, saying only that the medical marijuana law doesn't address them.

President Barack Obama, by the way, has told federal authorities to
back off from busting people in the medical marijuana community in
states where the drug is legal -- even though marijuana remains an
illegal drug under federal statutes.

So, the question of dispensaries in Michigan has become a local
matter. In Dryden, the Village Council passed an ordinance governing
dispensaries after the Compassionate Care Center had opened.

Clearly, this center and others in Michigan are pushing the
boundaries of an overly vague state law.

The act, for example, legalizes the cultivation, possession and use
of medical marijuana for registered patients, but does not state
where growers may get their seeds, or patients get their drug.

By magic, perhaps?

Or from dispensaries that are opening up in the gray areas on the
edges of the law.

Without question, they are offering their clientele a service.

The doubt lays in whether they may legally do so.

So, yes, we do hope these dispensaries get their wish.

"That's what we're waiting for, for someone to come in and say, Nope,
you can't do that. You're under arrest.' Because that's the test
case," registered caregiver and medical marijuana patient Mark Carter
told The Flint Journal for a story earlier this month.

Carter says he grow marijuana only for patients registered to him,
but he's willing to selling the extra he has, through the dispensary,
to patients who need it.

It's hard to say whether that test case will come from Dryden, though.

There, the village enacted a dispensary ordinance. Police hadn't
complained of problems with the dispensary.

Somewhere in Michigan, some day, medical marijuana advocates hope, a
police raid will come.

And begin to clear some of the haze that shrouds parts of state law.