Pubdate: Thu, 02 Aug 2012
Source: Detroit Free Press (MI)
Copyright: 2012 Detroit Free Press
Contact: http://www.freep.com/article/99999999/opinion04/50926009
Website: http://www.freep.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/125
Cited: http://www.freep.com/assets/freep/pdf/C419280981.PDF

APPEALS COURT: MICHIGAN CITIES, TOWNSHIPS CAN'T BAN GROWING, USE OF
MEDICAL MARIJUANA

LANSING - Michigan cities and townships cannot bar the cultivation and
use of medical marijuana, a state appellate court has decided in a
case involving an ordinance adopted by the city of Wyoming and
challenged by a patient there.

In an opinion released this morning, a unanimous three-judge panel of
the court said the local ordinance was clearly pre-empted by the
medical marijuana state law, and that local governments could not use
the federal prohibition on marijuana as an excuse to ban it.

The appeals ruling is a significant victory for advocates of medical
marijuana, who claim that cities and townships have been attempting to
thwart the law, approved by state voters in 2008. Similar legal
challenges have been brought against other communities, including
Livonia, Birmingham and Bloomfield Hills, which enacted similar ordinances.

"The entire medical marijuana community is elated by this decision,"
said Tim Beck, one of the leaders in the successful ballot proposal,
"It confirms our belief that states have a right to regulate their own
affairs."

The appeals court said Michigan and federal law did not conflict
because the voter-approved statute expressly acknowledged the federal
marijuana prohibition while providing an exemption for its cultivation
and use under state law.

"Congress can criminalize all uses of medical marijuana, (but) it
cannot require the state to do the same," the courts said.
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