MEDICAL MARIJUANA FOR SALE IN FERNDALE

The products with names like Freezeland, Bazooka and Excalibur sat in
a glass case while sales to customers -- with Ferndale Mayor Craig
Covey looking on -- seemed like transactions to cheer in any new
business opening amid Michigan's recession.

Except that these were strains of medical marijuana being sold at
Clinical Relief, which quietly opened this month, without a sign, in
a commercial space that had been vacant for months, Covey said.

On Thursday, he conducted what he called "a walk-through inspection,
to see how this business works as we get ready to see a lot more of
it in our state."

More than 50 Michigan cities, townships and counties have passed
ordinances limiting or banning medical-marijuana dispensaries, the
term used in other states for shops that sell to doctor-approved
patients. But a few communities are moving toward treating medical
marijuana like any new industry.

Lincoln Park plans to hold a hearing July 14 "to legislate this into
our business districts," and Southgate will do so later this summer,
Lincoln Park City Attorney Ed Zelenak said. Hazel Park is studying
how medical marijuana could boost its tax base, City Councilman Andy
LeCureaux said. What some said was the state's first dispensary
opened in January in Ypsilanti.

In Ferndale, Covey champions it both for economic growth and "as a
source of vital help to a lot of sick people." The Ferndale City
Council plans to vote this summer on an ordinance to regulate how and
where medical marijuana can be sold, and in the interim it passed a
moratorium June 14 to block dispensaries from opening; but Clinical
Relief opened a few days before the moratorium passed and thus can
stay open, Ferndale City Attorney Dan Christ said.

In a squeaky clean storefront sharing a building with a screen
printer, a fitness studio and a window cleaning firm, Clinical Relief
did a brisk business in packaged medical marijuana and in foods that
have it as an ingredient -- from candy bars to soda pop. Each client
signs a form promising not to resell the medical marijuana.

While other customers sat in a waiting area, newcomer Shawn Ryan, 28,
of Utica stood in the sales area, after showing the intake consultant
the state card proving he is an approved medical-marijuana patient,
suffering from injury to his spinal nerves.

"I was a union block layer for 12 years, and I used to do mixed
martial arts, too, but my back is beat up," Ryan said.

"Medical marijuana is a blessing to me" because it replaced the
Vicodin prescription painkiller that caused him serious side effects,
he said. Ryan paid $75 for a standard one-eighth-ounce package --
good for about a week of treatment, he said -- and $15 for a
cherry-flavored soda infused with hashish oil derived from marijuana.

Clinical Relief co-owner Ryan Richmond, 33, of Royal Oak said he is a
commercial real estate investor who saw profit potential in the new
field of medical marijuana sales.

By advertising on the Internet, "We're getting customers from all
across the state," Richmond said.