JOINT VENTURE

Dispensary-Like Enterprises Are Players in Medical Marijuana's Legal Gray Areas

We here at the Hits have been contemplating going to an all-marijuana
all-the-time format. When it comes to weed in Michigan, there's more
going on than you can shake a joint at.

Since passage of the state's medical marijuana law in 2008, it has
become an issue that's simply too big to ignore. Just take a gander
at the ads in this rag and it becomes immediately apparent that
bud-related business is booming.

But along with all the money being made by grow shops, specialty
medical clinics and others, there's also the issue of how
municipalities are going to deal with outfits that provide medicinal
cannabis to patients.

Metro Times recently wrote about the ACLU taking on cities like
Birmingham and Bloomfield Hills, which the organization says are
taking an illegal approach as they attempt to shut down
dispensary-like operations.

We use the term "dispensary-like" because, as far as we can tell,
actual dispensaries are clearly illegal under Michigan law. However,
falling into a legal gray area - at least until the issue gets sorted
out by the courts - are so-called "compassion clubs," where paying
members can go to get their medicine if they have obtained their state card.

We bring this up now because News Hits last week stopped by the
Trans-Love Energies Compassion Collective that recently opened on
Gratiot Avenue in Detroit in the Eastern Market area.

Earlier this year, when this paper published a cover story on the
issue ("The big push," March 24), we interviewed, among others,
Detroiters John Sinclair and Holice P. Wood about their plans to open
a place where prospective patients could obtain help getting
certification and then, once they did get their cards, have somewhere
to go where they could both buy medicine and hang out with others.

Finding a landlord willing to rent to them proved to be more
difficult than expected. Although their full vision has yet to be
realized, they are finally open for business and moving forward.

Which raises this important question: What stance is the city of
Detroit going to take toward these operations?

Back in March, Wood and Sinclair told us it was their intent to be in
the forefront of this movement, and if that meant testing the
boundaries of the law, then so be it. For Sinclair, that's nothing
new. In 1969, he was sentenced to a decade in prison after being
convicted of giving a few joints to an undercover narc. Eventually,
he was successful in getting the state's excessively harsh marijuana
laws struck down for being unconstitutional.

Now there's this new frontier. A number of cities have established
moratoriums on opening what we'll call, for lack of a better word,
dispensaries. They are using the time to figure out whether these
businesses will be allowed and, if so, how they will be regulated.

But Detroit officials, as far as we can tell, have stuck their head
up a particularly dark orifice as they try to ignore an issue that's
not going away. We sent an e-mail to members of Mayor Dave Bing's
communications team asking what the plan is, but received no response.

Wood, likewise, says he's been trying with no avail to get a meeting
with administration officials so that he can get some clarity as to
what the city's policy is. As for the office of County Prosecutor Kym
Worthy, this is the message we received from her spokeswoman:

"At this time we have not received any cases involving private clubs.
If we do get cases, we will follow the law. Everyone acknowledges
that there are some gray areas that the law currently does not
address. For that reason we cannot make a blanket statement to suit
every circumstance. If we do receive cases, they will rise or fall on
the specific facts and evidence."

In other words, when it comes to both the county and the city, there
is no policy.

"They will not take a stand," says Wood, a guy who, despite the
normally calming influence of weed, is anything but a shrinking violet.

But refusal to deal with reality is a tactic that only works so long.
Sooner or later a policy will have to be established. It is only a
matter of time.

Until then, the Trans-Love Energies Compassion Collective is open for
business. You can contact them at 313-759-8907, or find them on the
Web at transloveenergies313.com.

Tell 'em News Hits sent ya.