MORE OF A MORATORIUM?

CADILLAC -- Ken Lee is planning on being at Monday's Cadillac City
Council meeting.

Lee is a patient, caregiver and proponent of medical marijuana, and he
is very interested in the outcome of one discussion the council is
scheduled to have. That discussion involves whether or not the city
will extend its current moratorium on medical marijuana for another 12
months.

"It makes it harder for people to get their medicine," Lee said. "I
thought the city was moving a little faster than that."

The planning commission voted 8-0 in July to make the recommendation
to extend the moratorium to the Cadillac City Council. The commission
was getting ready to look at draft ordinances to possibly make a
recommendation to the city council in the coming months, but that
momentum stalled when City Attorney Mike Homier spoke at June's meeting.

At that meeting, Homier recommended the planning commission consider
asking the city council to extend the moratorium rather than draft an
ordinance because there was just too much uncertainty.

Concerns with moving forward and drafting an ordinance included the
fact the law doesn't even address medical marijuana dispensaries, that
marijuana is still illegal under federal law, the Downtown Development
Authority Board's wish to avoid having dispensaries downtown, as well
as the fact that the law could change significantly in the near future.

Although Lee believes that extending the moratorium will make things
harder on patients, he also said it won't impact the compassion club
he has helped to open. The club, which he said is for educational
purposes and not dispensing, opened the Friday before Labor Day.

In 2008, Michigan voters approved a medical marijuana ballot proposal
meant to protect qualifying patients with specific debilitating
medical conditions and certain caregivers from arrest, prosecution and
penalty for the medical use of a limited amount of marijuana. The city
of Cadillac imposed a six-month moratorium in April. If it had not
done so, a medical marijuana business would be considered a new zoning
use, and city officials would have to act on a request to set up shop
based on existing zoning requirements.

The council is scheduled to meet at 7 p.m. today at the Cadillac
Municipal Complex, 200 N. Lake St.