COPS: MEDICAL-MARIJUANA SITE SUPPLIED DRUG DEALERS

OAK PARK -- The raid by Oakland County Sheriff's deputies Wednesday
of the Oak Park offices, warehouse and other enterprises of a
prominent medical-marijuana entrepreneur was spurred by tips to
police that the site was supplying drug dealers, county authorities said.

Executing a search warrant, deputies seized about $2,874 in cash,
nine pounds of harvested marijuana stored in a freezer, five pounds
of packaged marijuana, about two dozen marijuana plants, and 10
pounds of baked goods containing suspected marijuana from facilities
at 8800 North End and 13211 North End, both belonging to Big Daddy's
Management Group, Oakland County Undersheriff Mike McCabe said.

The amount of cash seized was far less than the $20,000 reported as
confiscated, shortly after the raid Wednesday night by Royal Oak
attorney Jim Rasor, who represents the Big Daddy's enterprises.
Rasor, arrived at the site while the raid was in progress, misled
reporters intentionally, McCabe said. Rasor, an elected Royal Oak
city commissioner and outspoken advocate of easing marijuana laws,
said today, "I guess in the confusion, I misheard how much money it
was." Rasor said that Big Daddy's employees he spoke to after the
raid meant to say that $20,000 represented "the amount of cash plus
the value of everything taken in the raid."

Oakland County investigators "found out about Big Daddy's from two
drug dealers in northeast Oakland County. They told us they get all
their marijuana from Big Daddy's and resell it out of their houses,"
McCabe said today.

Although no arrests were made Wednesday, "we expect that arrests will
be forthcoming" after a review of evidence by the Oakland County
Prosecutors Office, he said. The big Daddy's operation is owned by
Rick Ferris, 46, of Berkley, who referred questions to his attorney
and business spokesman, both of whom said no laws were broken at the sites.

"We do everything according to the state law" that allows
state-approved patients and caregivers to possess marijuana and to
"transfer it but not sell it," although those who provide it can have
their expenses reimbursed, Big Daddy's spokesman Rick Thompson said.
Deputies also executed a search warrant at a Hazel Park home at 84 W.
Garfield. That's the residence of Stefani Ferris, office manager of
Big Daddy's Management Group and daughter of the owner, Thompson said.

"It's where she and her husband and their seven children live," he
said. Thompson said nothing significant was seized there, but county
authorities were unable to confirm that Thursday.

The 5 p.m. raid by about 10 deputies was at the Big Daddy's Hydro
warehouse -- where indoor cultivation equipment is warehoused and
fabricated for sale at shops in Chesterfield Township and Hazel Park
- -- and at the nearby offices of Michigan Medical Marijuana Magazine
and adjoining Big Daddy's Compassion Center -- considered an illegal
"dispensary" that sells medical marijuana in violation of the
Michigan Medical Marijuana Act, McCabe said.

"Dispensaries are not allowed" under the state law; "we have multiple
prosecutors throughout the state that agree with that," he said.