MARIJUANA CHARGES ARE REINSTATED AFTER APPEAL

The Michigan Court of Appeals has reinstated drug charges against two
Madison Heights residents who were using marijuana on the advice of a
doctor but had not obtained registration cards issued by the state
Department of Community Health.

Robert Redden and Torey Clark were arrested March 30, 2009, in a
Madison Heights home after police found 1 1/2 ounces of marijuana and
21 marijuana plants.

The two presented documentation from an out-of-state doctor who said
he examined both of them and determined that Redden was suffering
from pain that would be alleviated by marijuana. Clark, he said, was
suffering nausea. The doctor did not say what was causing the conditions.

At the time of their arrests, the state hadn't started issuing
patient registration cards, though the law that legalized marijuana
use for medicinal purposes had gone into effect four months before.

Three weeks later, Redden and Clark appeared in district court on one
count each of manufacturing more than 20, but less than 200 marijuana
plants. By then, the state had begun issuing the cards, and the two
had obtained them. The district court dropped the charges in July 2009.

Prosecutors appealed to Oakland County Circuit Court, which
reinstated the charges, saying the two should have abstained until
they had been granted the cards. Redden and Clark challenged that
ruling in appeals court.

In a decision released Tuesday, a three-member appellate panel
agreed, and sent the matter back to the district court for review.
Farmington Hills attorney Robert Mullen, representing the two
defendants, promised Wednesday to take the matter to the Michigan
Supreme Court.

"This case has to go to the Supreme Court because these issues have
to be hashed out," he said.

Some gray areas in Michigan's 2008 medical marijuana laws have left
police and patient users grappling with what's legal and what's not.
Following recent raids on businesses and homes, police said that some
medical marijuana providers are exceeding the amount they are allowed
to grow and dispense, and that some patients are acquiring the drug
though their medical conditions are not serious.

The appeals court decision appears to support police enforcement when
suspects do not have a state-issued medical patient card, yet allow
defendants to introduce a doctor's medical need determination as an
affirmative defense against criminal charges.

More than a dozen Oakland County residents were arrested in late
August and face a variety of charges. Those cases are pending.

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WARRANT ISSUED OVER POT FENCING

A legal medical marijuana user has been charged with a four-year
felony, after police yanked a dozen pot plants from his Auburn Hills yard.

"I'm not a criminal -- that's all there is to it," Mark Rowe, 43,
said Wednesday after finding out a warrant was issued charging him
with manufacturing marijuana.

A tip came in to investigators Tuesday that only a 4-foot-tall
chain-link fence separated the 6- and 7-foot-tall plants from kids in
the Caroline Street neighborhood and Auburn Elementary School a few
hundred feet away, said Auburn Hills Police Lt. James Manning.

"The law requires that the marijuana be in a locked, secured area,"
Manning said Wednesday, adding that only a patient and caretaker can
have access to the plants. "With the 4-foot-high fence and the
proximity to the elementary school as well as other juveniles in that
area -- and the marijuana was clearly visible -- it's very concerning."

Police said the man holds a valid medical marijuana card.

The Oakland County Prosecutor's Office issued a search warrant that
allowed police to take the plants Tuesday. A warrant was issued
Wednesday charging the man with manufacturing marijuana, said Chief
Assistant Prosecutor Paul Walton.

Walton pointed to a Wednesday court decision as setting the most
recent guidelines for unclear medical marijuana cases.

In it, Judge Peter O'Connell says state law allows medical marijuana
users with a medically debilitating disease to have 12 plants in a
secure place -- only if they don't have a designated caregiver.