Pubdate: Fri, 25 Oct 2013
Source: Detroit Free Press (MI)
Copyright: 2013 Detroit Free Press
Contact: http://www.freep.com/article/99999999/opinion04/50926009
Website: http://www.freep.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/125
Author: Bill Laitner, Detroit Free Press Staff Writer
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?275 (Cannabis - Michigan)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?253 (Cannabis - Medicinal - U.S.)

MEDICAL MARIJUANA-USING PARENTS GET THEIR BABY BACK AFTER CHARGES
DROPPED IN OAKLAND COUNTY

LANSING -- Baby Bree is back home.

In a case that galvanized Michigan supporters of medical marijuana,
custody of an 8-month-old seized by Child Protective Services workers
last month was awarded to the child's parents Friday in a Lansing courtroom.

"I'm ecstatic," said Bree's mother, Maria Green, standing outside the
courtroom with a dozen medical marijuana activists wearing green ribbons.

"Bree will be in her own bed tonight. We're going to hug her and read
to her and love her," said Green's husband, Steve Green.

On Sept. 13, Steve and Maria Green, each a state-approved marijuana
user, stood in their Lansing home in shock as employees from the
county's Child Protective Services unit said the Greens might be
exposing their infant daughter to marijuana. As police looked on
outside the Greens' two-story gray house, Bree was taken from her
mother's arms and driven away.

That action triggered an outcry of "Free Baby Bree" -- on websites and
the Greens' Facebook page, at rallies and fund-raisers, on the weekly
web-streamed Planet Green Trees Radio and outside the Ingham County
courthouse.

Four attorneys volunteered their time. And leaders of the
medical-marijuana community declared the case would make or break
future investigations involving medical marijuana by child protective
units across the state.

"The idea that medical marijuana patients can't be good parents is
just drug war hysteria," said Charmie Gholson, 49, of Ann Arbor. But
the Greens aren't the first to have a child taken, Gholson said.

"This has been going on almost since the law passed," she said.
Gholson is founder of Michigan Moms United, what she calls "a campaign
to re-educate the public and legislators about how the failed drug war
destroys families."

Steve Green, 34, is a former auto mechanic who suffers from severe
epileptic seizures that no medicine would relieve until he tried
marijuana, he said. Maria Green, 31, is a former preschool teacher who
has multiple sclerosis and operates a home-based business, selling her
own nutrition supplements, "that keeps a roof over our heads," she
said. Both are state-approved medical-marijuana users, as their
attorneys showed in court.

At their previous home in Auburn Hills, the couple was charged with
manufacturing marijuana -- a four-year felony -- because Oakland
County authorities found them growing marijuana. Today's court order
allows them to resume growing the plants, said Joshua Covert, the
couple's key attorney.

"I was there and I have to tell you -- that was hard to watch,"
JCovert said about Bree being taken away. But today's decision had him
smiling.

"We said we're going to let the parents medicate (with marijuana) but
not around the children, just what they've been doing all along, and
allow some type of regular testing of the baby, maybe a mouth swab,"
to prove that Bree was not being exposed, Covert said.

The Greens had been scheduled for a jury trial Monday, but this week
their luck turned. Ingham County Probate Judge Richard Garcia, at an
evidentiary hearing Wednesday, voiced doubts about the actions of
social workers and their allegations on a Child Protective Services
petition. That led Garcia to call for a special hearing today. That's
when the couple heard the words they longed to hear -- that Baby Bree
would come back to her mother and father.

"We've been hoping and praying for this, and we were joking about the
return policy," Maria Green said. The infant has been living with her
grandparents near Port Huron, under a temporary custody arrangement.
To get Bree home, her grandparents would have to drive her to a Child
Protective Services office in Lansing for an examination before she is
turned over to her mother and father, the parents said.

Later Friday night, Maria Green said from home: "She's here, and it's
fantastic. But we're actually having some issues with bedtime."

Covert said the direction of the case turned dramatically in the
Greens' favor "once we were able to show that they were both
(state-approved) patients and that the charges in Oakland County had
been dropped."

The Ingham County assistant prosecutor who represented Child
Protective Services at today's hearing declined to comment.

Ingham County Prosecutor Stuart Dunnings III said Tuesday that he
could not comment directly about Bree Green's parents' fitness to raise her.

"But I would hope that any parents who have the need to use
prescription medication would do so in a manner that does not expose
their child to harm," Dunnings said.

In Michigan's seesaw battle over the legitimacy of medical marijuana,
the Greens have become heroes to those who support full legalization
of the drug.

But for those at the other end of the spectrum, medical marijuana
activity in Michigan has become a cover for drug dealing.

"I've seen it firsthand," said Roseville Police Chief James Berlin,
who spent most of his career in narcotics enforcement.

"I'm sure there's legitimate patients, but we spend a lot of time and
effort investigating guys who have their (state registry) card and
they're raising plants and selling the drug to anyone who'll buy from
them," Berlin said.
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