LEGALIZE POT IN MICHIGAN PETITION DRIVE UNDER WAY

Attorney and marijuana advocate Matthew Abel stood inside a hotel
located on the Detroit River and reflected back to the 1920s when rum
runners would smuggle booze into the U.S. from Canada during
Prohibition.

He and a group calling themselves the Committee for a Safer Michigan
are trying to end another prohibition -- this time against marijuana.

"We are circulating petitions that would repeal prohibition of
marijuana for adults," said Abel, who works with Thomas Lavigne at
Detroit-based Cannabis Counsel.

The committee needs more than 333,000 signatures on petitions with the
goal of amending the state's Constitution to legalize marijuana before
July 9.

Should enough signatures be obtained, Michigan voters would see the
proposal on the ballot in November.

The proposed amendment, which renders all anti-marijuana statutes
unconstitutional, will not apply to or change workplace or driving
issues regarding marijuana, organizers said.

In 2008, voters approved an initiative that spelled out how people
could obtain and use medical marijuana, but since then law enforcement
agencies have conducted raids and arrested many who said they were
caregivers and medical marijuana patients.

Michigan courts are still wrestling with issues surrounding medical
marijuana.

Abel said the results of arrests and raids spurred the committee to
come together for change.

"We have a volunteer army upset about how the medical marijuana law
has been interpreted by the courts and they're ready to move to the
next step," he said. Asked how the committee would deal with the issue
of marijuana being regarded as an illegal, Schedule 1 drug at the
federal level, a position taken by law enforcement agencies, Abel said
law enforcement doesn't have the staff to deal with this matter.

"I relish the fight," he said.

"Are they going to put an FBI agent on every corner? Congress has not
been responsive. This is a first step to ending the federal
prohibition."

Friday's press conference was held at the Roberts Riverwalk Hotel,
formerly the Parke Davis Research Laboratory, where cannabis tinctures
were developed and manufactured in the early 19th century, organizers
said. Several supporters spoke about the benefits they had received by
using marijuana.

Charmie Gholson, spokeswoman for the committee and the daughter of a
police officer, called the prohibition of marijuana a "failed public
policy" and that the sick and dying have been "targeted" by government
officials over the past few years in the fight against marijuana.

Legalizing the drug would "allow law enforcement to focus on violent
crime," she said.

Abel said the state's marijuana community backs the
amendment.

Having legalized marijuana, he said, would be a "boon to the Michigan
economy."

Lavigne, who co-authored the amendment wording with Abel, said people
were tired of "scare tactics" used by law enforcement over the past
three years.

"Truth is on our side," he said.

"This (marijuana) is a plant. Where is the harm in
this?"

To learn more about this effort, visit www.repealtoday.org