CLEAR THE HAZE THAT CLOUDS LEGAL MEDICAL MARIJUANA IN MICHIGAN

Inhabiting the gray areas of Michigan's way-too-hazy Medical
Marijuana Act is a cottage industry that nobody knows how to handle.

Clearing the smoke of that popular 2008 law for medical marijuana
patients and the dispensaries that serve some of them should be among
the first orders of business for the new Michigan Legislature.

We're sure the patients and their caregivers would appreciate it - as
would the state administrators, judges, prosecutors, law enforcement
officers and municipal councils that are confounded by the law.

The short of it is that nobody quite knows how to handle the new
trade in marijuana that state voters legalized for authorized
patients seeking relief for their ailments.

In Pinconning, the City Council and the Bay Area Herbal Clinic have
done about as good a job as any in trying to live with this law that
leaves too many questions unanswered.

The clinic, 209-4 N. Mable, resembles the doctor's office that the
space once held. Wesley "Wes" Crumby, the chief operating officer of
the marijuana cooperative dispensary, says he's careful to stay
within what few guidelines the law provides.

Caregivers registered with the Michigan Department of Community
Health are allowed to grow up 12 marijuana plants for each of a
maximum of five patients, and collect reasonable compensation for
their efforts. Patients may possess 12 plants and 2.5 ounces of dried
marijuana.

Still, the law doesn't specifically permit dispensaries or
cooperatives - or the marijuana patient clubs that have popped up
across the state - nor does it prohibit them.

So, police for the most part don't know what to do with them, other
than to count the plants and divide by the number of their owners.

The Pinconning City Council did about all that it could to regulate
marijuana dispensaries when, on Dec. 20, it passed an ordinance
outlining where they are allowed. Basically, it limits the city to
the one dispensary already there, which was grandfathered in.

Of course, federal law is still quite clear on marijuana - it's
illegal, period. Early in his term, President Barack Obama ordered
federal authorities to back off of medical marijuana patients and
caregivers who appear to be adhering to local and state laws.

Thanks, we appreciate that.

But let's make it easier for patients and caregivers - and all state
and local authorities - to live with this law.

Legislators should enact rules detailing the legal distribution and
sale of medical marijuana.

These details are needed to keep law-abiding patients and caregivers
out of trouble, and to give communities and law enforcers clear guidance.

Now, they are all tripping over each other in their various
interpretations of the law.

In Saginaw County, authorities were faced with protesters after they
raided marijuana-growing operations whose owners claimed they thought
were legal.

In Lapeer County's small town of Dryden, a marijuana dispensary was
open for a while, then closed by authorities, reopened, then closed
after several police raids. Nobody knows what to do with the operation there.

And in an Oakland County case, the state Court of Appeals upheld a
lower court decision to reinstate drug charges against an Oakland
County man found with marijuana plants a month before state medical
marijuana cards became available. One of the three appeals judges
said the state law is overly vague and needs more detail.

Finally, this newspaper and others across the state have repeatedly
called for clarification as these instances and others convinced us
that medical marijuana use and enforcement have turned into a
guessing game for everyone involved.

In 2008, 60 percent of Michigan voters said marijuana should be legal
for patients with a doctor's recommendation.

Accordingly, any new rules clarifying that law should be enacted in
the spirit of that landslide approval.

Clear the haze around the Michigan Medical Marijuana Act. Tens of
thousands of Michigan patients using the drug, those caring for them
and the officials and officers charged with enforcing the law need that relief.