Search Results: lansing (27)

Photo: Rod Sanford/Lansing State Journal
Marijuana dispensary owner Danny Trevino calls Lansing, Mich. police Tuesday after they left a note at the storefront that he uses

​Lansing’s first official medical marijuana dispensary has opened, testing the limits of Michigan’s medical marijuana law. The business, still unnamed, opened last week as city officials work toward drafting a city ordinance to regulate cannabis related businesses, reports Scott Davis at Lansing State Journal.

“It gives peace of mind that there is a place where I can go to buy it,” said Darryl Brija, 52, a state-certified medical marijuana patient who has a degenerative back disease. “It’s a good thing for people who can’t grow it themselves.”

We told you earlier this week about marijuana decriminalization measures in Berkley, Huntington Woods, Pleasant Ridge and several other towns in Michigan and suburbs of Detroit. In total, there were 11 measures scattered around the state.
Well, voters did the right thing in six of those communities last night and passed bills lowering or eliminating marijuana penalties for small amounts of cannabis.


Federal officials have now brought charges against ten additional people in Michigan for allegedly using the state medical marijuana program as a front for illegal sales and cultivation, bringing the total number of people “busted” in the sting to 37.
According to the feds, the group called themselves the Medical Marijuana Team and was growing in multiple small towns in the western part of the state as caregivers for medical marijuana patients.

Michigan capitol.

Update 11/06/2013: Voters in Lansing, Jackson and Ferndale, Michigan all legalized the possession and use of up to an ounce of cannabis on private property yesterday. Jackson voters passed their measure by more than 800 votes, and roughly 63 percent of Lansing voters approved their measure.
Supporters say the move will force the legislature to approve a similar statewide measure during the upcoming legislative session.

MLive
Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette is, as my mama in Alabama would say, a horse’s ass

A new recall effort against Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette — infamous for his dogged opposition to the medical marijuana law approved by an overwhelming 63 percent of state voters in 2008 — is underway.

Attorney General Schuette has been busily trying to dismantle the state’s medical marijuana law ever since it was passed by voters. He claims to be a “states’ rights conservative” — unless the “state’s right” we’re talking about is a medical marijuana law.

Marijuana activist Richard Clement is trying, for the second time, to remove the attorney general after falling short with a petition signature drive last year, reports WKZO.

DUI Maze Blog

Giving medicinal cannabis patients a mixed bag — with some things they asked for, and some things they opposed — the Michigan House passed a series of bills on Thursday to modify the state’s medical marijuana law.

The changes include rules for the relationship between a patient and the doctor who authorizes medical marijuana use, and law enforcement access to the state’s patient registry, report Dawn Bell and Bill Laitner of the Detroit Free Press.
The four bills were all adopted on bipartisan votes, clearing the three-fourths majority needed to amend a voter-enacted law (Michigan voters legalized medical marijuana in 2008).
Similar majorities will be needed in the Michigan Senate before the changes become law, “but I do think we’ve sent a package they can adopt,” said an optimistic Rep. John Walsh (R-Livonia), chairman of the House Judiciary Committee.

Brittney Lohmiller/The Saginaw News
Dr. Bob Townsend meets with a patient in Saginaw, Michigan. “My patients didn’t tell me it helped them; they showed me by getting rid of narcotics,” Townsend said.

​One Michigan physician says that counter to what he was told in medical school, his patients have shown him that medical marijuana produces results.

“I, like most physicians, was taught that ‘medical marijuana’ was a political movement and marijuana has no medical use,” wrote Dr. Robert Townsend in the Lansing State Journal on Saturday. “But we were also taught to listen to our patients and base our decisions on evidence, not dogma.”
“Take chronic, severe pain — a qualifying condition for medical marijuana,” Dr. Townsend wrote. “IF my professors in medical school were correct, if marijuana is a Schedule I narcotic because it has no medical value, I would not expect marijuana use to result in a decreased need for pain medication.

Radioflyersl
According to bystanders, the man pictured at right allegedly used the sign he is holding in the photo to strike a pro-marijuana protester in the head. Police refused to do anything about the incident, smilingly saying it “looked like an accident.”

A violent attack by an anti-marijuana individual on a pro-marijuana protester at a medical cannabis rally in Michigan last week was ignored and laughed off by police who saw the incident, according to eyewitnesses.

The attack, which occurred at the medical marijuana rally at the state capitol in Lansing on Wednesday, happened to medical marijuana patient/activist “J.,” according to eyewitnesses.
“He got smacked in the head (purposely) by the guy with the ‘Say No To A Pothead Society’ sign and told he ‘could now go to hell,’ ” activist Zig Zag Man wrote in a Facebook note.
“J. had his sign raised higher than the idiot and when J. put his sign down to rest (sort of heavy), the anti-pothead swung his sign and hit J. in the face and twisted his head out of his normal ‘range of motion’ with the titanium plate holding his neck to his spine (he even had his neck brace on),” Zig Zag Man wrote.
“J. got over to the cop (adrenalin rush) and said ‘I want him arrested for assault,’ and the cop smiled and said, ‘Looked like an accident to me!’ “

Chris Collins
Official media estimates of the crowd ran as high as 1,500, but according to activist Missy Griggs of Clinton Township, who attended the rally, it may have been closer to 3,000 or even 4,000 people there.

Greg Deruiter/Lansing State Journal
Protesters converged on the Michigan state Capitol on Wednesday because of a recent court decision banning the sale of medical marijuana in dispensaries

​​​About 1,500 supporters filled the Capitol lawn Wednesday afternoon at the state capitol in Lansing, carrying signs reading “Patients Are Not Criminals” and “Weed Deserve Better” in what is being called the largest pro-medical marijuana rally in Michigan.

What Marisa Schultz of The Detroit News called a “spirited gathering” came after an Appeals Court ruling last month that resulted in the closing of many of the state’s estimated 400 to 500 medical marijuana dispensaries.
The ruling banned patient-to-patient marijuana sales for the nearly 100,000 carriers of Michigan medical marijuana cards, effectively limiting the ways in which patients can get medical marijuana and leaving them with few safe options to get their doctor-recommended cannabis, according to supporters.

Photo: Melanie Maxwell/Detroit Free Press
Ann Arbor residents Jaymz Edmonds, left, and T.J. Rice protest outside the OM of Medicine marijuana dispensary Thursday in Ann Arbor after a police raid of the nearby A2 Go Green dispensary.

​Raids, Closings Leave Medical Marijuana Patients Hurting

Many medical marijuana dispensaries in Michigan closed their doors on Thursday following a Court of Appeals ruling.

“It would be dangerous to operate with the specter of a criminal case hanging over our head,” said John Lewis, lawyer for Compassionate Apothecary in Mt. Pleasant, the center of the controversy, reports the Detroit Free Press.

Some Ann Arbor area activists sought to regroup at a rally Thursday night, reports Kyle Feldscher at AnnArbor.com.
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