OFFICIALS FOLLOWED LEGAL PROCEDURES IN DRUG RAID AT CLUB

Michigan's Legislature may not have gone far enough when it approved
legislation following voter approval of medical marijuana in 2008.
But it was clear that it did not legalize the sale and purchase of
marijuana by those with no medical needs.

And the law and how it should be implemented weren't all that
difficult to read, even for someone in a pot-induced haze.

So what's the fuss about raids of several sites in Oakland County
where marijuana was allegedly being smoked, bought and sold?

The raids were conducted by Oakland's Narcotics Enforcement Team.

Team members may not have been gentle as they seized marijuana valued
at $750,000 from "patients" and non-patients alike.

Sheriff Michael Bouchard said Everybody's Cafe in Waterford, is a
cafe that reopens as a "compassion club" at 4 p.m.

Operators required a membership fee, Bouchard said. Undercover
officers allegedly made purchases there and observed other
transactions not involving patients and their caregivers - those who
are allowed to grow and provide pot for patients.

Officers found other things not connected to medical marijuana
patients and caregivers, such as guns, and an alligator was guarding
someone's operation in Birmingham.

Compassion clubs' value as a support group for medical marijuana
users and what should and should not occur at their meetings are
spelled out by an umbrella organization, the Michigan Medical
Marijuana Association. Affiliated compassion clubs are not for
hook-up sessions or a place to swap seeds, the association's website
tells us. They're not a place to smoke pot or even possess it there.
Meetings are open to the public and often held in public places.

When voters approved the 2008 ballot question, many who backed the
proposal and voted for it did so with a wink and a nod.

Those folks saw it as a foot in the door to legalizing marijuana.

We don't know if the Medical Marijuana Association is operating with
a similar wink and a nod, but its guidelines suggest to us that
complaints about the raid and the seizure of supposedly legal
marijuana from patients in need of it are groundless.

More people appear to believe that legalizing some illegal substances
would make things a lot easier for users, law enforcement and those
of us who pay taxes for the war on drugs.

But that day hasn't arrived. As long as laws are on the books, they
should be followed; lawbreakers should be punished. If more laws are
needed, as Bouchard and Oakland County Prosecutor Jessica Cooper tell
us, they should be enacted.

But we don't believe for a minute that those present at that "club"
didn't know that illegal acts were taking place.