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Editorial: Royal Oak comes up with reasonable plan to regulate medicinal marijuana sellers
5/20/09|The Detroit News| Editorial



Royal Oak has come up with a sensible rule to regulate the growing and selling of marijuana for medical purposes. It would require pot purveyors to grow and sell their product in storefronts in the city's business district.

The business would be more visible and easier to regulate without unnecessarily hassling marijuana growers.

Proposal 1, passed by voters last November, allows each legally recognized medical marijuana patient to designate a caregiver. Caregivers are permitted to grow and provide marijuana for up to five patients and are allowed 2.5 ounces of pot, or 12 plants, per patient. Growing marijuana isn't cheap, so the state allows caregivers to be paid.

But home businesses are prohibited in Royal Oak. And compensated caregivers who work out of their homes are "off the grid" for tax purposes.

While city officials acknowledge that a five-patient enterprise wouldn't be enough to establish a viable business, caregivers can, and probably would, form "grow-ops" where each caregiver rents part of the store and grows marijuana in his own space.

If the zoning ordinance passes -- which would require adoption by the City Commission -- Royal Oak could become a model for other Michigan cities that want to respect the state's medical marijuana law but also want to reasonably regulate the business.