TWO GROUPS PLAN MEDICAL MARIJUANA EVENTS IN LANSING

Club to Have Doctor on Hand Same Day As Cannabis Caravan

There's competition brewing in the local medical marijuana market.

The Capitol City Compassion Club, an advocacy and education group,
plans to have a doctor available for patients June 20, the same date
that the Montana Caregivers Network intends to have a medical
cannabis caravan camped outside The University Quality Inn in Lansing.

Robin Schneider, the local club's president, said she decided to hold
the event when she learned that the Montana network's emerging
Michigan branch might only have a doctor available for appointments
over the television.

"We think it's ridiculous," she said.

Schneider said that the club will have a doctor ready to look at
medical records, assess pain and make recommendations that could gain
them entry into the state's medical marijuana program.

Appointments may cost as much as $150, the same potential cost being
advertised for appointments now being arranged with the Montana group.

However, Jason Christ, who heads the Montana Caregivers Network, said
the local group is confused for thinking the June 20 event would only
have doctors available over the television. Christ said while he is
planning to have a few doctors available for face-to-face
appointments and perhaps a "telemedicine" doctor, he said he will not
know until a few days before the event who really will be available
for the seriously ill.

In the interim, he is making further plans for his network to expand
its presence throughout the state. According to Christ, he'd like 15
to 20 people to staff the newly-formed Michigan Caregivers Network.

Christ also was in town this week to talk with Lansing officials
about the upcoming June 20 event.

"They're comfortable with us doing it," he said, noting that June 20
affair will have booths and music along with doctor's appointments.

Lt. Noel Garcia, spokesman for the Lansing Police Department, would
not comment on the meeting.

Ingham County Prosecutor Stuart Dunnings III said he doesn't plan to
weigh in on the debate over whether the June 20 events should be
stopped unless the police give him a call.

If that happens, he would relay points of the law to police, he said.

He said that he has no issue with those who would work within the
confines of the law.

"It's the people that are trying to use this as a front to make
oodles and oodles of money" that trouble him, he said. "Those kinds
of groups are going to have trouble."

James McCurtis, spokesman for the Michigan Department of Community
Health, said his concern isn't that two groups will hold June 20
events featuring doctors and medical marijuana.

What concerns him, he said, is that there most likely isn't any
long-established doctor-patient relationship with those manning the events.