Pubdate: Sun, 22 Jan 2012
Source: Daily Tribune, The (Royal Oak, MI)
Copyright: 2012 The Daily Tribune
Contact:  http://www.dailytribune.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1579
Author: Carol Hopkins

MARIJUANA ADVOCATES KEEP THE PRESSURE ON

DETROIT - Attorney and marijuana advocate Matthew Abel stood inside a 
hotel located on the Detroit River and reflected back to the 1920s 
when rum runners would smuggle booze into the United States from 
Canada during Prohibition.

He and a group calling themselves the Committee for a Safer Michigan 
are trying to end another prohibition - this time against marijuana.

"We are circulating petitions that would repeal prohibition of 
marijuana for adults," said Abel, who works with Thomas Lavigne at 
Detroit-based Cannabis Counsel.

The committee needs more than 333,000 signatures on petitions before 
July 9 with the goal of amending the state's Constitution to legalize 
marijuana.

Should enough signatures be obtained, Michigan voters would see the 
proposal on the ballot in November.

The proposed amendment, which renders all anti-marijuana statutes 
unconstitutional, will not apply to or change workplace or driving 
issues regarding marijuana, organizers said.

In 2008, voters approved an initiative that spelled out how people 
could obtain and use medical marijuana, but since then law 
enforcement agencies have conducted raids and arrested many who said 
they were caregivers and medical marijuana patients.

Michigan courts are still wrestling with issues surrounding medical marijuana.

Abel said the results of arrests and raids spurred the committee to 
come together for change.

"We have a volunteer army upset about how the medical marijuana law 
has been interpreted by the courts, and they're ready to move to the 
next step," he said.

Asked how the committee would deal with the issue of marijuana being 
regarded as an illegal, Schedule 1 drug at the federal level, a 
position taken by law enforcement agencies, Abel said law en

forcement doesn't have the staff to deal with this matter.

"I relish the fight," he said.

"Are they going to put an FBI agent on every corner? Congress has not 
been responsive. This is a first step to ending the federal prohibition."

Friday's press conference was held at the Roberts Riverwalk Hotel, 
formerly the Parke Davis Research Laboratory, where cannabis 
tinctures were developed and manufactured in the early 19th century, 
organizers said. Several supporters spoke about the benefits they had 
received by using marijuana.

Charmie Gholson, spokeswoman for the committee and the daughter of a 
police officer, called the prohibition of marijuana a "failed public 
policy" and that the sick and dying have been "targeted" by 
government officials over the past few years in the fight against marijuana.

Legalizing the drug would "allow law enforcement to focus on violent 
crime," she said.

Abel said the state's marijuana community backs the amendment.

Having legalized marijuana, he said, would be a "boon to the Michigan economy."

Lavigne, who co-authored the amendment wording with Abel, said people 
were tired of "scare tactics" used by law enforcement over the past 
three years.

"Truth is on our side," he said.

"This (marijuana) is a plant. Where is the harm in this?"

To learn more about the petition drive, visit www.repealtoday.org.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom