This article was originally published on the Marijuana Patients Organization site on December 14, 2011.
Simply put, Ferndale city officials, local, state and county police officers, Oakland County CEO Brooks Patterson, and several other leaders allowed the business to operate legally and in fact gave them the green light to open. The city’s mayor, Craig Covey even appeared on the cover of the Detroit Free Press welcoming Clinical Relief to the community and applauding their efforts. The ruling is now adjourned until early next year, leaving defendants and their families without resolve over another holiday. Perhaps an extension of the now 18 month prosecution is the punishment itself dished out by Judge O’Brien.
It is difficult to understand why the prosecution is still aggressively attacking Clinical Relief defendants (and many others) and why the judge has waited this long to throw out a case that clearly has no place on anyone’s docket, that is until todays events at the courthouse. Oakland County assistant prosecutor Beth Hand in her arguments today exclaimed, “all the people that are in medical marijuana are looking to legalize it and that’s why this law exists, they must be stopped.” I am paraphrasing and will post actual and very-telling court transcripts shortly.
The whole thing, medical marijuana that is, is nothing but political BS. You have one very small group pointing fingers at an even smaller group, both with financial and personal motives, why else does man war if not to savor the spoils. For the prosecution, winning represents increased drug crime convictions and the money that comes along with it. They are right, marijuana legalization, medical or recreational, means salary cuts for the courts.
On the other side of the coin, that is the extreme side of the coin, you have “legalizers”, those trying to “free the weed” as our disapproving Attorney General Bill Schuette would point out. Both sides are going to argue loudly, with neither looking at any compromise or middle-ground, a war indeed.
Between all this shouting, confusion, and smoke exists many medical marijuana industry folks right in the middle, those who are trying to really help patients and prefer to fly below the radar, with no real moral opinion on the legalization issue. These people are dismissed by the prosecution as being legalizers in disguise and assumed to be legalizers by the legalizers, causing even more smoke to an already cloudy room. These people that represent the medical community never make good news stories, that is until they are raided by police after being labeled “legalizers”. For the most part medical marijuana folks are rather boring and represent the average citizen.
When 63% of Michigan voters approved the medical marihuana Act, I would bet that 62.5% of them were neither legalizers or prosecutors, in fact most of them fall somewhere right in the middle. Why is it impossible to believe that these unjustly labeled “pot shop” owners do not have visions of legalization, many want to help patients and do it legally and compassionately. The Act still provides this protection but prosecutors ignore it. Hard line stance is simply that, no resistance towards a middle ground, “they are all guilty.”
At today’s hearing Judge Dan O’Brien appeared to disagree with actions taken by prosecutors and police and asked one question, if profit was protected and defined in the Michigan Medical Marihuana Act. Defense attorneys quickly educated him about the plain language in the Act itself that states, “yes” caregivers can receive compensation. The judge agreed but still asked “does that mean profit is allowed in the Act?”