MARSHALL TALKS MARIJUANA

Council to Seek Input From Experts, Public at October Forum

MARSHALL -- The Marshall City Council is using its six-month
moratorium on medical marijuana businesses to research the sticky
issue and develop standards for local pot proprietors.

At a workshop Monday, the council decided it would seek input from
medical marijuana experts and residents at a public forum,
tentatively scheduled for Oct. 4.

The council approved the moratorium July 19 after entrepreneur Paul
Sutherland approached the city about starting a medical marijuana
dispensary. The moratorium was implemented to give the city time to
research Michigan's new law, approved by voters in November 2008,
which legalized pot for medical use. Use or possession of the drug is
still against federal law.

And the state-federal discrepancy is just one of an array of issues
facing local municipalities when it comes to regulating medical
marijuana businesses, city attorney Paul Beardslee told council
members at Monday's workshop. There's also the question of how a
medical marijuana dispensary should be zoned, who would enforce any
local regulations, what kind of specific regulations the city might
place on these businesses and many other things.

The law allows people with certain medical conditions who are
approved for state-issued cards to possess up to 2.5 ounces of
marijuana and allows state-approved caregivers to possess up to 12
marijuana plants for each of up to five patients.

"Voters made a huge mistake" in passing the law, said Councilman
Brent Williams. "But this is the law that voters have given us and
it's our job as city officials to figure out to deal with this."

Beardslee reminded the council that Marshall voters supported the law
by a roughly 55-to-45 percent margin.

The council said the intent of the law -- helping those with terminal
or painful medical conditions -- should be kept in mind; there should
be no profit-driven pot warehouses in Marshall, Williams said. The
council appeared on Monday to lean toward allowing home-based medical
marijuana businesses only.

But Councilman Jim Dyer said the council needed to hear from both
users and growers of medical marijuana -- as well as Sutherland and
the public -- about how the medical pot industry should work in
Marshall. A public forum is expected in October.

"I think the way we approach this is to determine what we want to
prohibit and what we want to allow," Dyer said.

Beardslee gave council members a run-down of how other cites have
approached medical marijuana. According to the report, 26
municipalities, including Battle Creek, have passed moratoriums; five
have passed zoning regulations; 12 have passed outright bans; and
four have regulation talks in progress. Beardslee also gave the
council a report on the subject from the Public Corporation Law
Section annual seminar, detailing examples of other cities' regulations.

Meanwhile, the city's efforts attracted the attention of documentary
filmmaker Kristopher Brown, of Kettle Whistle Productions, who said
he's making a documentary about the new law's application statewide.

"I really just want to educate," Brown said. "I think a lot of the
problems people are having is just a lack of education."