Pompo

Michigan approves medical marijuana
South of the border, old law still applies
11/15/08|The Journal Gazette| by Jeff Wiehe - The Journal Gazette



If you’re in Michigan and ill enough, you will soon be able to legally do what a government study estimates roughly 14.8 million people in the United States do at least casually:

Smoke weed.

Voters up north solidly supported an initiative this past Election Day legalizing marijuana use for medicinal purposes, making it the 13th state in the nation and the first in the Midwest to do so.

The law takes effect next month, and shortly thereafter, people the Michigan Department of Health deems to have a debilitating medical condition can obtain an identification card that allows them to grow and possess marijuana.

Those Hoosiers planning to cross the border to get such an ID card – and their own stash – should probably think twice, though. Local law enforcement officials warn they’ll probably still end up in cuffs if police find marijuana on them, no matter what kind of doctor’s note or ID card they might pull out.

“The bottom line is such a prescription does not transfer from state to state,” Allen County Prosecutor Karen Richards said. “Just because they can do it there doesn’t mean they can do it here.”

Low profile

The law seemed to have flown under the radar of many in the local law enforcement community who operate just below Michigan’s state line, which is about 65 miles from Fort Wayne.

LaGrange County Sheriff Terry Martin, whose jurisdiction bumps right up to the Michigan border, heard about the law from an inmate Wednesday at his jail and thought it was a joke. Sgt. Ron Galaviz of the Indiana State Police heard two people behind him talking about it at the Purdue-Michigan State football game last Saturday.

He too thought it was a joke – at first.

“It’s definitely something I would like to think would be on everybody’s mind,” said Galaviz, who planned to alert his command staff to the law when he found out it was real. “I think guys might become a little more attuned to it, especially in those northern counties, but time will tell.”

The Marijuana Policy Project, a lobbyist group trying to overhaul marijuana laws, helped push the initiative in Michigan, which was approved by 63 percent of voters.

The initiative was based on marijuana laws in Rhode Island and designed to keep marijuana in the hands of only those who need it for medical purposes or their caregivers, no one else, according to Marijuana Policy Project spokesman Dan Bernath.

“We think the law as written in Michigan is probably one of the best,” Bernath said. “It’s one of the most highly regulated laws for marijuana.”

Who can get it

Who gets medical marijuana in Michigan will be handled by the state’s Bureau of Health Professions, an arm of the Department of Community Health.

Identification cards will be issued to either a patient deemed ill enough to have the drug or that patient’s caregiver, as long as that caregiver is older than 21.

To qualify for the card, a patient must be certified by a physician as having a “debilitating medical condition” such as cancer, AIDS or a rare multisystem genetic disorder called nail patella, according to the Department of Community Health.

Doctors cannot prescribe it, because of federal law.

Because the law and program are both so new, an official at the Department of Community Health declined to answer questions. Instead, she said people wanting to know about the program, which is still being worked out, should read a frequently asked-questions link on the department’s Web site.

Sick people who qualify for the identification cards will be able to possess, without being arrested or prosecuted, up to 2 1/2 ounces of usable marijuana and be able to keep 12 marijuana plants in an enclosed, locked facility, according to the department’s Web site.

A caregiver the department allows to help a patient with medical marijuana can possess 2 1/2 ounces of usable marijuana and 12 locked-up plants per each patient he or she is registered to help.

To ingest the drug, the marijuana can be smoked, baked into foods or even vaporized, according to Bernath, but getting the seeds to grow plants is another story.

The Department of Community Health will not offer advice for patients on how to cultivate marijuana or obtain it, according to its Web site. And so far, obtaining marijuana is still a federal offense in the United States.

“It defies logic,” Bernath said. “There’s nothing in Michigan law that allows patients to purchase marijuana. Bottom line is, patients are still going to be required to be resourceful to get seeds, but this is the best we can do under federal prohibition.”

Other states with similar laws to the new one in Michigan have seen little trouble, according to Bernath.

Back home

A gram of marijuana makes up about one cigarette, according to Sgt. Steve Stone of the Allen County Sheriff’s Department.

That means someone with 2 1/2 ounces of marijuana could conceivably have about 70 joints legally in Michigan. Here, possession of that much pot could be a felony, but when Richards spoke of prosecuting those who may have permission for marijuana use in Michigan, she did leave a caveat.

“It would depend on the circumstances,” she said of prosecuting someone. “It would depend on the nature of the illness, the amount of marijuana, etc.”