Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette Says Yes to Dispensaries

This article was originally published on the Marijuana Patients Organization site on June 6, 2013.

When understanding the issues surrounding medical marijuana in Michigan, one must start with Citizen’s Protecting Michigan’s Kids, a political action committee (PAC) that urged voters to vote NO on proposal 1, the Michigan ballot initiative that legalized marijuana for medical use in 2008.

The PAC funded television ad campaigns, held press events and marketed through their website www.nopotshops.com, reminding voters that passage of the medical marijuana act would harm our kids by bringing dispensaries to the area, and the same unwanted consequences of California, here to Michigan.

While this group screamed, “what about the children?” they did acknowledge, very loud in fact, that by approving proposal 1, the Michigan Medical Marijuana Act, we are also allowing for dispensaries in the State.

So who were the members of this group?

The organization’s most public and outspoken members were; Bill Schuette, then an appeals court judge now the Attorney General of Michigan, Oakland County Sherriff Mike Bouchard and Rick Jones a State Senator from the Lansing area.  The web site www.nopotshops.com is no more, however an archived version can be seen here http://web.archive.org/web/20090430202303/http://www.nopotshops.com/

Why is this group so important in regards to medical marijuana today?

Simple, these individuals are still the most public and outspoken regarding medical marijuana and are continuing the spread of misinformation that exists in our media. The bias actions of these elected official is shameful.

We as voters allowed for this Medical Marijuana Act, now let us and our elected “non-bias” leaders decide how to regulate it. Individuals like Schuette, Jones and Bouchard have shown little regard for the democratic process and should be excluded from the regulation process involving medical marijuana in our State. In fact they should be gagged.

Dispensaries in the State of Michigan have had no negative impact to our communities, despite the fact that almost daily, these same men, in the name of protecting children, orchestrate attacks against patients, caregivers, dispensary staff and their families, while continuing the spread of misinformation about their operations. These dispensaries have not turned out to be the reggae-multi-colored outlets that Mr. Schuette warned us about in 2008. In fact dispensaries have helped thousands of needy patients, just like pharmacists and nurses do every day.

The only issue the Michigan Medical Marijuana Act has faced, in our opinion, is the abuses masterminded by the group, Citizens Protecting Michigan’s Kids.