When Colorado passed Amendment 64 in 2012, cities across the state were given until October 1st, 2013, to have their own individual rules put in place to regulate the inevitable wave of recreational retail pot shops.
Aurora, Colorado, the third largest city in the state, has no legal medical marijuana storefronts, and feeling the pressure of the impending deadline for recreational stores, enacted a moratorium of up to one year on the opening of any retail outlets either. That was in May of last year.
Since then, the spitballing City Council and the Ad Hoc A64 Committee have made some rather far-fetched proposals to get in on the lucrative legal weed market, even proposing that the city grow and sell its own! But their latest proposal may be the most ludicrous one to date.
Search Results: license/ (5)
| broadcast-everywhere.net |
| Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette refuses to defend the laws he is sworn to uphold. Is this asshole Michigan’s attorney general, or is he a federal agent? |
Hey Michigan, Your Attorney General Is An Asshole
Police are not required to return confiscated medical marijuana to a patient or caregiver — even though a state law prohibits medical pot seizures, according to an opinion issued by Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette on Thursday.
Schuette, who has evidently mistaken himself for a federal officer rather than someone in charge of enforcing state laws, said the provision in Michigan’s 2008 medical marijuana law directly conflicts with, and is pre-empted by, federal law, reports Kim Kozlowski at The Detroit News.
“By returning marijuana to a registered patient or caregiver, a law enforcement officer is exposing himself or herself to potential criminal and civil penalties under the (federal law) for the distribution of marijuana or abetting the possession of distribution of marijuana,” Schuette’s opinion stated — despite the fact that this scenario has never happened in any state.
| Photo: Tom Perkins/AnnArbor.com |
| Super Lemon Haze medical marijuana at the 3rd Coast Compassion Center in Ypsilanti, Michigan. 3rd Coast just became the first municipally licensed dispensary in the state. |
A medical marijuana center in Ypsilanti has become the first in Michigan to receive a dispensary license from a local municipality.
The 3rd Coast Compassion Center, which was also the state’s first medical marijuana dispensary to open its doors in late 2009, received its licensed from the City of Ypsilanti in May, reports Tom Perkins of Annarbor.com.
The dispensary, located at the corner of Hamilton and Pearl streets in Ypsilanti, was open prior to the city establishing zoning ordinances and a licensing process. It was the first allowed to submit its application for a license.
Michigan patients, caregivers, law enforcement and civil authorities are still sorting out whether or not dispensaries are legal in the state since the Michigan Medical Marihuana Act was approved by an overwhelming 63 percent of voters in November 2008. Opponents argue that nothing in the law allows the centers to exist, but medical marijuana advocates argue they are acting within the law, saying that nothing in the act says they can’t operate.
| Photo: AnnArbor.com |
| Medical marijuana dispensary owner Chuck Ream holds a sign calling for the firing of Ann Arbor City Attorney Stephen Postema outside city hall last month. Ream has been at odds with Postema over details of the city’s medical marijuana ordinances. |
City council members in Ann Arbor, Michigan have decided they no longer want to have licensing regulations for medical marijuana cultivation facilities.
The city could still regulate where the grow facilities — places where medical pot is grown other than private homes — can be located through the city’s zoning ordinance, reports Ryan J. Stanton at AnnArbor.com. But the council voted Monday night at the request of Council Member Sabra Briere (D-1st Ward) to remove any reference to cultivation facilities from a proposed licensing ordinance.
Licensing rules will still apply to dispensaries, the places where cannabis is sold to patients.
| Photo: Westword |
| Attorneys Bob Hoban (left) and Rob Corry, joined by patients, speak at a news conference today about the CannaMart lawsuit. |
Four medical marijuana patients and two caregivers in Centennial, Colo., have announced a lawsuit against the city for forcing the closure of CannaMart, a pot dispensary, Westword reports.
The plaintiffs will argue that cities like Centennial “are prohibited from imposing land use restrictions on local businesses when such restrictions infringe upon the rights upheld by the state Constitution as ‘matters of statewide concern’.”
The group says it’s the first time in Colorado history that a coalition of patients and caregivers will sue a municipal government to reopen a dispensary.
According to Bob Hoban, one of the attorneys representing the patients and caregivers bringing the suit, a ruling in the case could turn out to be precedent-setting. “This isn’t something we’re looking at as a test case, something to throw against the wall to see if it sticks,” he told Westword. “It’s something where we believe the court is almost compelled to come down on our side because of the Constitutional issues at stake.”