POT BACKERS: WE'LL KEEP FIGHTING

They See Potential Ally in Schuette

Tuesday's election stunned marijuana proponents, including
Californians who hoped their state would legalize possession of the
drug and Michiganders who worried that a Republican landslide might
threaten access to medical marijuana.

But Michigan activists said the election wouldn't slow their efforts
to expand patient access to the drug and to legalize it for
recreational use in Detroit. Michigan Attorney General-elect Bill
Schuette, long a foe of the Michigan Medical Marijuana Act, even gave
activists hope that he might help their cause.

Although Schuette said Friday that the law was as bad as he'd
predicted, he stopped short of agreeing with Oakland County
authorities who have arrested patients linked to dispensaries --
shops that sell medical marijuana. Dispensaries are allowed in the
medical marijuana laws of seven states but not mentioned in
Michigan's law and thus are illegal, Oakland County Prosecutor
Jessica Cooper said this week.

But Schuette said Michigan's law "never prohibited them." He said he
warned in 2008, when the act was debated, that dispensaries would
crop up if it passed. "Now we've seen them emerge because it's a
poorly crafted law," he said.

Asked whether he'd issue an opinion allowing dispensaries, he said:
"I'm going to wait for that issue to occur. Remember, I'm not
attorney general yet."

Before the election, marijuana activists e-mailed and held marches in
Ann Arbor and Lansing to voice their fears, particularly about
Schuette, Detroit lawyer Matt Abel said. Yet, Schuette "might not be
the enemy we thought he'd be," after activists digging on the
Internet found old speeches in which Schuette said the wording of the
state law would allow dispensaries, Abel said.

Activists want an attorney general who will "clarify the law and see
that implementation protects patients," he said.

Medical marijuana patient Dondi Meitz, 46, of White Lake Township
said Michigan "has a pretty good law, and I really don't think
Schuette's going to mess with it." Meitz, who has juvenile rheumatoid
arthritis, heads the Brighton Area Compassion Club.

The leader of an effort to legalize small amounts of marijuana in
Detroit for recreational use said he's still determined to get the
measure on the ballot.

Tim Beck, a Detroiter and heath insurance executive, helped gather
more than 7,000 signatures, but the proposal was kept off Tuesday's
ballot by the Detroit Board of Elections. Beck said Friday that his
group would continue fighting the decision in the Michigan Court of
Appeals, with a decision expected in 2011.

For a GOP-led Legislature to repeal the marijuana act would require a
three-quarter super-majority in both houses.