CHARGES RESTORED IN MEDICAL-MARIJUANA CASE

Owosso -- A man with a medical-marijuana card can be charged with
drug crimes after police found him growing pot outdoors in a dog
kennel, the Michigan appeals court said Friday.

In a 2-1 decision, the court reinstated charges against Larry King of
Owosso, saying the fenced-in kennel does not qualify as an "enclosed,
locked facility" under Michigan's fledgling medical-marijuana law.

The dissenting judge, E. Thomas Fitzgerald, said King was being
wrongly punished.

The law's "susceptibility to multiple interpretations should not
result in the use of the act as a sword, rather than a shield" in
King's case, Fitzgerald said.

Acting on a tip, Owosso police went to King's house in May 2009, less
than a month after he received a medical-marijuana card from the
state. Marijuana was growing inside the kennel, which had a locked
6-foot-high fence and was partially covered with black plastic on the sides.

"An open, moveable, chain-link kennel is not of the same kind or
character as a closet or room," judges Henry William Saad and David
Sawyer said.

The law is intended to make marijuana "inaccessible to anyone other
than a licensed grower or a qualifying patient," the judges said.

King also had marijuana inside an unlocked closet in his house, Saad
and Sawyer said.

The appeals court said Shiawassee County Judge Gerald Lostracco
misinterpreted the law when he dismissed charges against King.

A message seeking comment was left with his lawyer, Matthew Abel.

Michigan's medical-marijuana law has been widely criticized for its
lack of clarity. Experts predict the state Supreme Court eventually
will have to step in and make a ruling.