JUDGE ALLOWS MEDICAL MARIJUANA DEFENDANTS' USE

A district judge in Ferndale said Thursday that he would allow
state-approved medical marijuana defendants to keep using the drug
while out on bond -- a sharp contrast to a Waterford judge's
statement Tuesday that deemed marijuana use by defendants in a
parallel case to be a bond violation.

The contrast in treatment for those arrested in metro Detroit's first
major medical marijuana raids showed the breadth of interpretations
for the Michigan Medical Marijuana Act, Wayne State University law
school professor Bob Sedler said.

After Thursday's brief hearings for 10 defendants, Ferndale District
Judge Joseph Longo told the Free Press that any who were
state-approved patients could use marijuana while awaiting trial. The
defendants are to appear at a hearing Sept. 20.

Both sets of defendants were arrested Aug. 25 in raids by the Oakland
County Narcotics Enforcement Team.

"They have every right to use whatever medications" their physicians
prescribe, Longo said.

On Tuesday, Waterford District Judge Richard Kuhn Jr. said none of
the 13 defendants in cases assigned to him could use marijuana while
free on bond, despite any doctors' statements they offered about
their medical conditions.

After Kuhn's ruling, former Oakland County Prosecutor David Gorcyca
- -- once a vehement foe of illegal drugs, now a defense attorney --
said the Michigan Medical Marijuana Act "gives any of these people
the right" to use the drug as medicine.

Oakland County Sheriff Michael Bouchard said Thursday that the two
groups included operators and customers of medical marijuana sales
outlets, called dispensaries, which he said are not allowed by Michigan's law.

But medical marijuana advocates, as well as Bouchard, have said the
raids and resulting criminal charges -- felonies with jail terms as
long as seven years -- could become landmark cases that force
Michigan's court system to decide such issues as whether dispensaries
are legal. Voters in 2008 passed the state law that lets approved
patients use medical marijuana and lets approved caregivers provide the drug.