Pubdate: Wed, 22 Jun 2011 Source: Battle Creek Enquirer (MI) Copyright: 2011 Battle Creek Enquirer Contact: http://www.battlecreekenquirer.com/customerservice/contactus.html Website: http://www.battlecreekenquirer.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1359 Author: Barrett Newkirk B.C.'S MEDICAL MARIJUANA BAN MAY BE EXTENDED ANOTHER YEAR Battle Creek officials have moved toward extending the city's ban on new medical marijuana operations into the middle of next year. The city commission voted Tuesday to introduce an 11-month extension of a medical marijuana moratorium first enacted last year. Commissioner Elizabeth Fulton cast the only dissenting vote. Fulton said she felt delaying a decision on a local medical marijuana ordinance was neglecting her duties. "I just don't think I would be doing my job as an elected official by putting this off, for two months, for eleven months," she said. A final vote on the extension could come at the commission's next meeting on July 5. If approved, the extension would be the third time commissioners have delayed a decision on any kind of local medical marijuana regulations. A moratorium was first approved last July and then extended by six months in January. City Attorney Eileen Wicklund recommended the additional extension so that issues with the Michigan medical marijuana law can be examined by courts and the Legislature. Wicklund said that unlike other city ordinances that are based on state laws and court decisions related to those laws, courts have not had enough time to interpret the medical marijuana law. "This law puts this city commission in a huge legal bind if it takes action one way or the other," Wicklund said. Since voters approved Michigan's medical marijuana law in 2008, communities around the state have struggled to institute some local oversight to a drug that remains illegal under federal law. The state law allows for people with certain medical conditions to receive a state medical marijuana license and for people to become licensed medical marijuana growers. The city's moratorium doesn't ban licensed users or growers in the city, but blocks larger growing operations or sites set up for dispensing or using medical marijuana. Commissioners in December scrapped a plan that would have instituted zoning restrictions and a city license for some medical marijuana growers. Past meetings about medical marijuana brought dozens of the law's supporters to City Hall because of worry that commissioners would limit patients' access to the drug. On Tuesday, no one from the public spoke on the issue. - --- MAP posted-by: Richard R Smith Jr.