Wayne County sheriff's deputies seized marijuana with an estimated value of more than $500,000 from the trunk of a limousine in Southgate, spokeswoman Paula Bridges said Wednesday.

Deputies acting on a tip watched Tuesday, Bridges said, as two men took a car hauler with four vehicles, including the limo. Deputies found about 150 pounds of marijuana in 11 bundles, she said.

[name redacted], 20, was charged with possession with intent to deliver marijuana, Bridges said. He was freed and faces a preliminary examination Dec. 30. Another man awaits arraignment.

[end]

When it passed in November 2008, there was no way to predict just how the process of assessing and approving or denying patients for the program would go. There was also no way of knowing just how many Michigan residents would want to apply for the program, which makes it legal for those eligible to grow and use marijuana for medicinal purposes.

One year after it became a legal way for those suffering from illness and conditions to self-medicate, the situation is still with a few wrinkles.

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Saginaw City Hall was packed Monday with protesters calling for the City Council to vote down a six-month moratorium to freeze medical marijuana production and use while leaders rework zoning laws for the drug.

The council later postponed the decision. They will vote at a 6:30 p.m. Monday, Jan. 11, meeting at City Hall, 1315 S. Washington.

As of Friday, six people had signed up to speak about the topic. By Monday's 1 p.m. deadline to sign up for the public speaking session, 28 people registered, although only 22 people spoke. Protesters as far as Detroit, Clio, Niles and Grand Rapids signed up to speak on the subject.

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The state's medical marijuana program -- begun in April -- hasn't created headaches for Livingston County's law enforcement, but likely will as the program grows, said county Sheriff Bob Bezotte.

The Michigan Medical Marihuana Program allows patients with debilitating illnesses to grow and possess marijuana for medicinal purposes. Those approved receive cards that indicate their participation in the program.

The measure was approved by Michigan voters Nov. 4, 2008, and is overseen by the Michigan Department of Community Health.

As of Dec. 11, 11,517 program applications had been received, 6,439 patient registrations issued, 2,686 caregiver registrations issued and 1,981 applications denied.

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KALAMAZOO -- A shop specializing in hydroponic-growing equipment opened this month in Three Rivers.

In January, classes on soil nutrition and proper lighting will begin in Kalamazoo.

By March, a cooperative in Benton Harbor may be doling out ounces of pot to patients.

The medical-marijuana economy, booming on the east side of the state, is sprouting in Southwest Michigan.

There's no limitation in terms of the level of growth in this industry," said Charlie Smith, secretary of the Kalamazoo Area Compassion Club, a group of 62 registered marijuana patients and caregivers and their supporters.

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SIDNEY - David Overholt has great hopes for the marijuana he is growing in the basement of his Montcalm County farmhouse.

As a founder of the Mid Michigan Compassion Club, Overholt says the medical marijuana law approved statewide last year has created business opportunities for people who see marijuana as an alternative to traditional pills and painkillers.

"We're bringing structure and order to an industry that has none," said Overholt, whose club tries to pair patients legally entitled to get marijuana with "caregivers" growing marijuana legally.

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GRAND RAPIDS -- Allowing medical marijuana sales from the homes of those who grow is preferable to allowing stand-alone marijuana dispensaries, City Planning Director Suzanne Schulz said Thursday.

"We are going to have people doing it anyway," Schultz told the city's Planning Commission.

The commission tabled the matter, vowing to discuss it next month despite several members who said they were aghast at the prospect of allowing marijuana distribution in neighborhoods. "Obviously it's an emotional issue," Commission Vice Chairman Paul Potter said.

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GRAND RAPIDS - Olon Tucker says he is an entrepreneur and wants to take advantage of the state's new medical marijuana law by opening The Medical Marijuana Learning Center.

The center, at 2012 28th St. SE, would sell marijuana to registered customers in the form of pastries, butter, pills or smoking products. The center also would teach customers how to grow their own marijuana.

"This is a $1 billion industry in California," said Tucker, 37. "I'm here to educate people; I'm here to help them get their recommendation from a medical doctor."

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LANSING -- Michigan medical marijuana regulators say they've been deluged with applications from patients and caregivers and face a five-week backlog in processing them.

State voters approved medical marijuana use a year ago.

The state Department of Community Health said today it's received 10,398 applications since starting April 6.

It's issued 5,873 patient registrations and 2,440 caregiver registrations while denying 1,867, mainly because of missing information.

An average of 66 applications arrive daily. The department says it reviews applications within 15 days but workers are behind in issuing cards.

Officials say staffers now are processing applications from late September and hope to speed the process by year's end.

[end]

Regarding syndicated columnist George Will's Nov. 30th column ("Be wary of Rocky Mountain high"): The drug war is largely a war on marijuana smokers.

In 2008, there were 847,863 marijuana arrests in the United States, almost 90 percent for simple possession. At a time when state and local governments are laying off police, firefighters and teachers, this country continues to spend enormous public resources criminalizing Americans who prefer marijuana to martinis. The end result of this ongoing culture war is not necessarily lower rates of use.

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I'm writing about George F. Will's not-so-thoughtful column: "'Customers,' not patients" (Nov. 29).

Most drug war cheerleaders proclaim that if marijuana were re-legalized, pot use would skyrocket. I believe that the Netherlands example shows that this probably would not happen. The Dutch use marijuana at less the half the rate American's do. (See www.drugwarfacts.org ).

But suppose pot use did increase. Suppose pot use by adults doubled.

Would this necessarily be bad? I submit that it would not. As pot use increases, alcohol use declines.

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Saginaw City Hall may ask residents for input on where medical marijuana producers may grow and sell their product.

Monday, the City Council could introduce an ordinance imposing a citywide moratorium halting the growth and distribution of marijuana for medical use until June 30, giving leaders time to modify zoning to include the drug.

"Any time you start to work out a substantial change in a zoning ordinance, there sometimes is a land rush to start these things" before the laws go into effect, City Attorney Thomas H. Fancher said. "The idea here is to blow the whistle and keep the status quo until the ordinance is written, so everyone has the same start."

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The business of medical marijuana is rapidly evolving in Michigan, with Royal Oak preparing to pass the state's first zoning law to cluster professional growers and the opening in Southfield of a trade school teaching plant cultivation.

On Tuesday, Royal Oak city leaders are expected to debate a proposed zoning ordinance requiring all licensed medical marijuana caregivers to grow pot in a dispensary in the city's general business district, which encompasses the retail and commercial strip along Woodward Avenue.

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Michigan's Medical Marijuana Program is getting 66 applications a day - - so many that the state health department can't process them quickly, Michigan's Department of Community Health said today.

The department's latest update said the department since April has issued 5,873 registrations for patients and 2,440 for caregivers who dispense marijuana.

Some 10,393 people have applied to grow or receive medical marijuana since April, the department said in a statement.

Applications are reviewed within 15 days, but the department has been unable to process all the applications in that time. State law allows a person to use a copy of the application to serve as valid identification if a card is not issued within 20 days after it is submitted for those not informed of a decision by mail, the department said.

The department said it is taking measures to improve the application process by the end of the month.

[end]

GENESEE COUNTY, Michigan -- Perry Belcher might chuckle good-naturedly at the tongue-in-cheek title "Professor of Pot" -- but the former cameraman-turned-college instructor says his History of Cannabis course is no joking matter. "Almost everything people think they know about marijuana comes from decades of propaganda that has no basis in viable medical information," said Belcher, a northern Genesee County resident on the faculty at the newly opened Med Grow Cannabis College in Southfield. "All that historical stigma is something we still have to overcome even with the new laws legalizing medicinal use."

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DENVER - Inside the green neon sign, which is shaped like a marijuana leaf, is a red cross. The cross serves the fiction that most transactions in the store - which is what it really is - involve medicine.

The U.S. Justice Department recently announced that federal laws against marijuana would not be enforced for possession of marijuana that conforms to states' laws. In 2000, Colorado legalized medical marijuana.

Since Justice's decision, the average age of the 400 persons a day seeking "prescriptions" at Colorado's multiplying medical marijuana dispensaries has fallen precipitously. Many new customers are college students.

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SOUTHFIELD, Mich. -- At most colleges, marijuana is very much an extracurricular matter. But at Med Grow Cannabis College, marijuana is the curriculum: the history, the horticulture and the legal how-to's of Michigan's new medical marijuana program.

"This state needs jobs, and we think medical marijuana can stimulate the state economy with hundreds of jobs and millions of dollars," said Nick Tennant, the 24-year-old founder of the college, which is actually a burgeoning business (no baccalaureates here) operating from a few bare-bones rooms in a Detroit suburb.

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Hamburg Township --Ryann Anderson's young life as a drug addict ended not on a squalid urban street, but in a rented house in a rural Livingston County hamlet better known for quiet lakes than quick highs.

It wasn't an isolated tragedy.

Just three months after the 25-year-old former cheerleader was found dead last November in the run-down house on Sheldon Road, police were called to the same address under similar circumstances. Paul Anthony Chester, 55, died the same way: alone, in his room, of a heroin overdose.

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The Free Press editorial about medical marijuana ignored the plain language of the law in claiming that it is "anybody's guess" whether an employer can discipline a medical marijuana patient for "coming to work stoned" ("Marijuana initiative: No quick fix for it," Nov. 7). The voter-enacted law specifies that "Nothing in this act shall be construed to require: An employer to accommodate the ingestion of marijuana in any workplace or any employee working while under the influence of marijuana. " In other words, the initiative is perfectly clear about which section trumps the other. The section on employers disciplining employees for medical marijuana "shall not be construed to require" the employer to allow employees to work impaired. To use such a manufactured problem as an excuse to argue for denying the people the right to vote on issues is appalling. Were it not for the initiative process, Michigan's seriously ill would still face arrest for relieving their suffering.

Karen O'Keefe

Marijuana Policy Project

Washington DC

[end]

The Growing Pot Economy

Opportunities Ripen for New Businesses

The tailspin may be over, but no one's suggesting that bedrock industries of the Michigan economy like cars and real estate are headed for boom times again.

The Michigan marijuana economy, on the other hand, appears to be going gangbusters.

Once largely underground, activity linked to the cultivation and use of pot is now in full public view thanks to voter approval in 2008 of marijuana use for medicinal purposes.

Equipment manufacturers, retailers, doctors, lawyers and publishers are suddenly advertising, hanging up shingles, opening storefronts and building growing equipment all over the state.

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