COUNTY OFFERS HELP ON MARIJUANA QUESTIONS

The Oakland County legal department is offering research on medical
marijuana ordinances to local communities struggling how - or if - to
regulate medical marijuana.

The county's office of corporation counsel was scheduled to make its
63-page research document available to local communities Thursday,
said Oakland County Executive L. Brooks Patterson.

"Some of the communities don't know which way to go so we've sent
them a menu to pick from," Patterson said. "There's a lot of
consternation at the local level about medical marijuana dispensary
clinics popping up.

"So we did a quick research project of how other states and
communities dealt with regulating or banning it," he said. "We just
gave them what we thought were model statutes. We're just trying to
help the locals respond to what portends to be a proliferation of
marijuana shops around the country."

Communities have three options, the county has concluded.

One is to adopt a moratorium to study the issue, an approach adopted
by Auburn Hills, Bloomfield Township, Royal Oak and Southfield.

A second is to regulate medical marijuana through local zoning
ordinances and permits.

That's an approach that has been taken in Ferndale, where medical
marijuana can only be dispensed by court order, and Huntington Woods,
as well as in Roseville in Macomb County and Garden City in Wayne County.

The third is to attempt to ban medical marijuana to the extent
possible, an approach taken in Birmingham and Bloomfield Hills, which
have banned anything that violates federal law.

Voters adopted a medical marijuana amendment in Michigan two years
ago, but marijuana remains illegal under federal law.

Patterson favors a ban, although he says it's up to each community to
choose their own approach.

State voters, he said, approved medical marijuana two years ago under
the guise of easing suffering. Now, dispensary businesses are touting
the tax revenues of their businesses to local communities.

"That's why I think it's a fraud," he said.

Most recently, he objected to a marijuana dispensary event to be held
at the Silverdome in Pontiac.

"The camel is putting its nose under the tent," he said. "Pretty soon
we won't be able to drive down I-75 because of the smoke."