Terry Clark is one of more than 16,000 people in Michigan certified to smoke marijuana for medical reasons, which is exactly what he was doing Wednesday afternoon when officers from the Tri-County Metro Narcotics Squad burst into the Green Leaf Smokers Club outside Williamston with guns drawn.
"They treated us like criminals, forced us to the ground, even though I have to walk with a cane," said Clark, 48, who said he suffers from arthritis, seizures and chronic pain.
He and the one other customer in the club eventually were asked to show their state-issued medical marijuana cards, which they did, Clark said. They were then allowed to leave.
Law enforcement officials remained mum about the reasons for the raid and its results. Read more »
A push to legalize marijuana in Detroit, Michigan, is being led by a city resident who also helped lead the drive to allow medical marijuana in the state.
"You've done a great job" meeting the filing requirements, City Clerk Janice Winfrey said Wednesday to Tim Beck as he handed over more than 6,100 petition signatures, reports Bill Laitner of the Detroit Free Press.
Beck, 58, spent the last five weeks supervising the collection of signatures to get on Detroit's November ballot. The proposal, which needed only 3,700 signatures to qualify for the ballot, would legalize possession of up to an ounce of cannabis on private property by adults 21 and older.
A registered medical marijuana patient, Beck said enforcing marijuana laws is a waste of the city's money.
"Some things should no longer be considered a crime, like minor marijuana possession," Beck said, reports Tom Greenwood of The Detroit News. "We have to start addressing the massive state budget crisis, the lack of resources in Detroit and prison overcrowding." Read more »
COLUMBUS — Over the years, enthusiasm for the annual Ann Arbor Hash Bash in the heart of the University of Michigan’s campus has waxed and waned.
But earlier this month, roughly 5,000 people turned out, thanks to nice weather, the appearance of comedians Cheech and Chong and, say organizers, a new law legalizing the medical use of marijuana.
The year-old Michigan law serves as a model for what two Democratic legislators want to have passed in Ohio. The Michigan law allows adults, or their caregivers, to grow and use marijuana if their doctor certifies that they have a debilitating condition or chronic pain. The law does not allow them to buy or sell seeds and plants.
So far, the department has issued 17,559 registration cards and denied 3,596 applications, mostly due to incomplete information. The department receives 1,000 applications a week.
Read more »
While Michigan voters approved the legalization of medical marijuana in 2008, California voters will decide in November whether to fully legalize and tax the drug.
Mark Binelli reported on the movement for Rolling Stone's April issue, using Detroit as an example of marijuana's potential economic impact.
"From California to downtown Detroit, there's a green revolution sweeping across the nation -- and it's changing the weed business forever," Binelli wrote.
Despite medical marijuana being legal in Michigan, WalMart has fired a cancer patient and former employee of the year who tested positive for the drug, which was recommended by his doctor.
"I was terminated because I failed a drug screening," ex-WalMart employee Joseph Casias told WZZM-13.
In 2008, Casias was Associate of the Year at the WalMart store in Battle Creek, Mich., despite suffering from sinus cancer and an inoperable brain tumor.
At his doctor's recommendation, Casias legally uses medical marijuana to ease his pain.
ROYAL OAK -- The city won't return medical marijuana confiscated from a registered patient during a traffic stop or compensate him for it, according to a letter sent Tuesday to the American Civil Liberties Union.
City Attorney David Gillam said the patient, a 46-year-old Royal Oak man with multiple sclerosis, violated the 2008 Michigan Medical Marihuana Act by possessing marijuana obtained from someone who is not his registered caregiver.
"We do not agree that marihuana from any source enters a safe harbor once it is possessed by a registered patient and cannot be taken away," Gillam said in his letter. "If a qualifying patient can acquire marihuana from any source, why does the MMMA require a primary caregiver to be registered with the (Michigan Department of Community Health)? The MMMA was clearly not intended to allow qualifying patients to acquire marihuana from any source."
There's a new club in town for people who use medical marijuana. The Green Leaf Smokers Club opened in Williamstown Township. Owners say it's the first of it's kind in the state. Police fear it's just the beginning of a dangerous trend. A place for pot smokers to drink from a pot of coffee, eat a cookie laced with pot, or smoke it to ease their pain.
Rev. Wayne Dagit, Green Leaf Smokers Club: "Unfortunately a lot of people are resorting to the streets to get their medication, and we are offering a place where they can do so legally."
GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (WZZM) - Growers and users of medical marijuana say regulations under consideration in Grand Rapids will make it harder for patients to get the medicine.
"The day after they pass this ordinance there are going to be a lot of care givers that quit," says Joe Cain of the Michigan Medical Marijuana Association.
At the city commission meeting Tuesday night, opponents said they object to rules requiring providers to have a business license. They say medical marijuana is not a business.
And they don't want representatives from the police, fire and building departments coming in without a warrant in to inspect their homes at any time.
SOUTHFIELD, MICH.– Budding opportunity is the lesson at marijuana school, where everyone, it seems, wants to be the teacher's pet.
In a scene almost unimaginable during the George W. Bush era, a standing-room-only class of 42 people is taking down the professor's every word at an inconspicuous industrial plaza on the outskirts of job-depleted Detroit.
Some are laid-off autoworkers, others straight out of high school. But the goal is the same: to graduate with a green thumb to quietly grow and distribute medical marijuana – and the legal smarts to avoid getting caught by Michigan's finest.
KALAMAZOO — Dr. David Crocker has never given a recommendation for a patient to use medical marijuana to treat a debilitating condition.
But that will change Monday when Crocker is set to open Michigan Holistic Health — the first full-time medical marijuana clinic in Southwest Michigan — at 500 W. Crosstown Parkway, near the corner of South Westnedge Avenue, in Kalamazoo.
“I think we’re going to be very busy, very fast,” said Crocker, 44. “This is a service that is really lacking in this area.”
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By. Matthew Miller
By Steve Elliott, Toke of the Town
By Laura A. Bischoff, Columbus Bureau
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By. Steve Elliot, Toke of the Town
ROYAL OAK -- The city won't return medical marijuana confiscated from a registered patient during a traffic stop or compensate him for it, according to a letter sent Tuesday to the American Civil Liberties Union.
There's a new club in town for people who use medical marijuana. The Green Leaf Smokers Club opened in Williamstown Township. Owners say it's the first of it's kind in the state. Police fear it's just the beginning of a dangerous trend. 
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