This article was originally published on the Marijuana Patients Organization site on September 6, 2013.
Currently there is a bill in the Michigan legislature, HB 4271. A bill that is, as it’s drafters explain, “the fix” to medical marijuana access. On the surface it sounds ok. It sounds even better when the legislators that penned it explain the plan.
But what does the bill actually do? The bill restricts access to medical marijuana patients and puts patients and caregivers at a greater risk for arrest. At the core of the legislation it gives communities the power to continue or restrict medical marijuana use, possession and delivery, all of which are protected on a state-level and decided in a state-level referendum. Several marijuana organizations including the Dispensary Association (MMDA – http://dispensaryassociation.org), an organization of dispensary and care-giving operations throughout Michigan have spoken in opposition to the restrictive legislation.
State policy makers need to make the rules for access. Failing to do so, by allowing local communities (1,700 local governmental units) to set their own access rules or even their own quality control rules, will unnecessarily drive-up criminal justice costs, marginalize more lives, and deny reasonable access.
Think of the Mobile Home Commission (read more here>>), exclusionary zoning, now imagine this HB4271.
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For more information about the Michigan Medical Marijuana Act, you can read the MMDA’s latest white paper here, http://dispensaryassociation.org/2013-white-paper.pdf