Pubdate: Tue, 28 May 2013
Source: Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (PA)
Copyright: 2013 Block News Alliance
Contact: http://drugsense.org/url/pm4R4dI4
Website: http://www.post-gazette.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/341
Author: Kris Turner, Block News Alliance
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?197 (Marijuana - Medicinal - Ohio)

MEDICAL POT LIGHTING UP DEBATE IN MICHIGAN AND OHIO

DETROIT -- Brandy Zink stammers, repeating words over and over before 
she's able to complete a thought. Sometimes she suddenly tastes or smells food.

It's small things that signal the onset of her seizures.

"I have little, tiny seizures throughout my day; they're barely 
noticeable. I might stutter and say a word five times in a row," said 
the 36-year-old, who suffers from epilepsy. "People think it's what 
you've seen in a movie, or in real life where you've seen someone 
fall down and foam at the mouth. Many seizures are like a record 
player where the needle skips."

The one thing that keeps the needle in the groove for Ms. Zink is 
marijuana. The drug has been a lifelong tool she has used to quell 
the tremors, blackouts and sense memories that plague her.

"It certainly keeps my muscle spasms and tremors to a minimum. If I 
am going to take prescriptions, I am going to have to take something 
that has a side effect," said Ms. Zink, a medical marijuana patient. 
"With cannabis, there are no side effects. I can use different kinds 
for different things.

"It's become a part of my life where I've used it for so long, 
especially since I have consistent access to it in Michigan. When I 
have consistent access, it's almost like I forget I have epilepsy."

That access remains a lightning rod of legal, legislative and social 
debate in Michigan, where medical marijuana is legal, and in Ohio, 
where activists plan to put a constitutional amendment to legalize 
medical cannabis on the November 2014 ballot.

"In Ohio, access to marijuana is there," said Ms. Zink, who moved 
from Columbus to Detroit so she could use her medicine legally. 
"Columbus has some really great cannabis, but it is not legal under 
the state law, so there is a criminal element to the distribution of it."

Michigan voters approved medical marijuana in November 2008, with 63 
percent in favor and 37 percent dissenting. That fact is where much 
of the clarity ends on the ballot-measure-turned-law.

Police and prosecutors aren't quite sure how to enforce some aspects 
of the law. Further definition has been provided by Michigan's courts 
and legislature on marijuana dispensaries, transportation of the 
drug, and what constitutes a doctor/patient relationship. But 
pervasive questions linger.

"Law enforcement as a whole has been given a job that's impossible to 
do," said Arthur Cotter, the prosecuting attorney in Berrien County, 
Michigan. Mr. Cotter chairs the medical marijuana committee for the 
Prosecuting Attorneys Association of Michigan.

One of the largest questions posed to law enforcement is: How much 
marijuana can a patient or grower possess? Michigan law states that a 
patient may possess up to 2.5 ounces of usable marijuana, but it also 
allows a patient to possess more if it is medically necessary "to 
ensure the uninterrupted availability of marijuana for the purpose of 
treating or alleviating the patient's serious or debilitating medical 
condition ... ."

A similar clause is included for marijuana growers.

Questions also remain as to what form of marijuana the law applies 
to. Marijuana can be smoked, put into a drink, inhaled, ingested, or 
applied directly to the skin with oil or a balm. Amounts of the drug 
vary in each of its forms, and some exceed 2.5 ounces.

These gray areas leave police, prosecutors and judges to decide 
what's legal and what constitutes a crime.

'This is a Mess'

"This is a mess, and it's put law enforcement in an untenable 
position," Mr. Cotter said.

The law is subject to interpretation, which widely varies from county 
to county in Michigan. Marijuana advocates said it's easier to use 
the drug in Washtenaw County than Oakland County because of the 
liberal political and social climate around the University of Michigan.

Washtenaw County is home to Ann Arbor, which decriminalized less than 
2 ounces of marijuana in 1972. Users caught with that amount or less 
are fined with a civil infraction. Steve Hiller, a spokesman for the 
Washtenaw County Prosecutor's Office, said marijuana cases are not a 
priority and haven't been for some time.

Activists described Oakland County as conservative and one of the 
most strictly enforced areas in Michigan for medical marijuana users. 
The Blade of Toledo, Ohio, left repeated messages with the Oakland 
County Prosecutor's Office during the course of reporting this story. 
Those calls were not returned.

"There is a lot of variety in enforcement throughout the state. Each 
county has its own prosecuting attorney and they have discretion to 
what cases they want to bring," said Matthew Abel, a Detroit attorney 
who specializes in marijuana law. "Meanwhile, the prosecutor is an 
elected official and has to live in the community and has to ascribe 
to community standards."

Mr. Abel hired Ms. Zink shortly after she moved to Michigan as his 
receptionist and secretary.

Karen O'Keefe, director of state policies for the Marijuana Policy 
Project, said opponents of medical marijuana would criticize the law 
no matter what. The project drafted Michigan's law based on Hawaii's 
and revamped it to fit within the state's legal framework.

"In some of the areas you hear about being vague, everything to some 
extent is going to be open to interpretation," she said.

Interpretation Key

Interpretations of the law fluctuate from county to county in 
Michigan, but the problems that stem from it do not.

The Blade reached out to the 68 prosecutors in Michigan's Lower 
Peninsula, and of the 37 who agreed to talk, almost all said their 
offices handled cases in which the state's medical marijuana law was 
exploited. Those cases often involved patients or growers who 
cultivated excessive amounts of marijuana, they said.

Ingham County prosecutor Stuart Dunnings III said people who follow 
the letter of the law aren't problematic. The people who use it as a 
front to sell marijuana on the black market or grow excessive amounts 
are the ones creating issues.

Those people often invoke the law's gray areas as a defense, he said.

"We prosecute, but you have to understand there is a quirk in our 
law," Mr. Dunnings said. "The law is horrible."

State officials and law enforcement don't have a good handle on who 
is using medical marijuana or how many marijuana plants are legally 
growing in the state. The law shields virtually all information about 
patients and caregivers and bars almost all state inspections of 
growing operations.

The law was engineered that way, Ms. O'Keefe said.

"If you just think about it, people who are sick, it's very invasive 
to have somebody to come into your home," she said. "The idea of 
enforcement people coming into your home -- you don't do that for any 
other medication."

The Blade filed a Freedom of Information Act request seeking the ages 
and genders of medical marijuana patients and growers, but that 
request was denied. A subsequent appeal also was denied.

Aside from a report submitted each year to the Legislature by the 
Michigan Department of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs, no 
information is provided to the public as to who uses medical 
marijuana. That report gives a general overview of the number of 
medical marijuana patients and growers, the counties in which they 
are located, and the medical conditions patients have.

According to the fiscal year 2012 report, Wayne, Oakland, and Macomb 
counties were the top three areas in which marijuana patients reside. 
The top three conditions people suffer from include severe and 
chronic pain, severe and persistent muscle spasms, and nausea.

Prosecutorial problems and a lack of information about marijuana 
users and growers aren't the only issues that stem from the act. The 
state failed to assemble a review panel to assess what conditions 
could be aided by medical marijuana within a six-month window of the 
law's passage, which is required by the act.

The panel did not convene until December 2012.

The panel, which approved post-traumatic stress disorder as a 
condition that could be aided by medical cannabis, did not have all 
the members called for under state law and was disassembled earlier 
this month. The decisions made under its purview have been declared 
null and void.

A mix of ordinances aimed at decriminalizing marijuana is working its 
way through the local governments of three Michigan communities: 
Lansing, Jackson and Ferndale. Following in Ann Arbor's footsteps, 
five communities decriminalized possession of small amounts of 
marijuana in November 2012: Detroit, Grand Rapids, Ypsilanti, 
Kalamazoo and Flint.

Those movements culminated in April when a bill that would 
decriminalize possession of an ounce or less of marijuana was 
introduced in the Legislature. The bill's primary sponsor -- Rep. 
Jeff Irwin, D-Ann Arbor -- said Michigan spends about $325 million 
each year enforcing marijuana laws. That funding could be allocated 
to education or road maintenance, he said.

"There are also practical reasons that move us in this direction, 
mainly that marijuana prohibition isn't working," Mr. Irwin said. 
"Here we are spending hundreds of millions of dollars on a project 
that isn't working."

According to marijuana seizure statistics from the U.S. Drug 
Enforcement Administration, marijuana arrests in Michigan increased 
371 percent from 2003 to 2011. The DEA doesn't track how many of 
those arrests -- 140 in 2003 and 659 in 2011 -- were related to 
medical marijuana operations. The Michigan State Police also do not 
maintain that information.

The Black Market

Arrests are bound to increase as the state cracks down on marijuana 
dispensaries, said Tim Beck, a marijuana activist dubbed the 
godfather of marijuana in Michigan. The state Supreme Court issued an 
opinion in February that ruled dispensaries cannot facilitate 
patient-to-patient sales and are a public nuisance.

"What's going on now is it's gone more underground and to the black 
market," he said.

"What was happening is the dispensaries would get their supply from 
the caregivers and growers who had more than they need. They'd get 
this product, mark it up and sell it to patents who were going to a dispensary.

"One can surmise that it's going somewhere now."

A bill introduced shortly after the Michigan Supreme Court decision 
would allow provisioning centers to distribute marijuana, essentially 
functioning as a dispensary under a different name. The main 
difference between a provisioning center and a dispensary is that 
patient-to-patient sales would not be allowed. The bill opens the 
doors to dispensaries, which have continued to thrive in spite of the 
Supreme Court ruling.

Much like the medical marijuana law, the bill bars virtually all 
state inspections. It does, however, allow municipalities to regulate them.

"What the bill attempts to do is create local control. I have to pass 
this politically, and sometimes I can come up with a better bill and 
will never pass it," said Rep. Mike Callton, R-Nashville, the bill's 
primary sponsor. "Local control is very appealing, so it can get votes."

The greening of Ohio is underway, but marijuana advocates are taking 
a different approach than the one used in Michigan.

After failing to usher in various pieces of medical marijuana 
legislation during the 2000s, activists joined together in January to 
push forward a constitutional amendment that would legalize medical 
cannabis and hemp production.

The state approved the wording of The Ohio Rights Group's amendment Thursday.

"We realize that 2013 is a long shot, and if somebody wants to show 
up with $20 million and says, 'Do it,' we'll do it," said Mary Jane 
Borden, secretary and treasurer of the Ohio Rights Group.

"I think that in 2014, it's going to happen."

The amendment contains a list of rights pertaining to medical 
marijuana and hemp, but doesn't offer many specifics.

Those details would be hammered out by the Ohio Commission of 
Cannabis Control, which is called for in the amendment. The 
commission would be composed of voters, medical marijuana patients or 
people eligible for it, and medical, state and law enforcement officials.

Ms. Borden said the amendment is only meant as a starting point.

"We feel the minutia should be left to the commission, and what we 
feel we're trying to do is spell out the basic rights and that of the 
commission," she said.

In order to make the November 2014 ballot, the Ohio Rights Group 
needs to collect 385,000 valid signatures and come up with the 
funding to launch its campaign. Ms. Borden said the group has donors 
in line, but no major funding source has been acquired at this point.

"Like any political campaign, it comes down to money, money and 
money," she said.

Amending the state constitution could have unforeseen consequences, 
said Robert Mikos, a professor and medical marijuana law expert at 
Vanderbilt Law School.

In California, where voters amended the state constitution to allow 
medical marijuana in 1996, the courts rejected attempts by the 
Legislature to place limits on the amount of pot a patient can possess.

Clarity in the law is the only way Ohio can avoid the problems other 
states are experiencing, he said.

"There's always risk in making a referendum like this through a state 
constitution. The risk is ... if you make a mistake," Mr. Mikos said.

"For example, if the measure doesn't consider some important factor 
or if it perhaps goes too far and legalizes too much, it becomes 
tougher to fix those mistakes down the line."
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom