| Photo: Tim Thompson/The Oakland Press |
| Candi and Bill Teichman, owners of Everybody’s Café in Waterford Township, Mich., have lost their children, their bank accounts, and their dispensary. |
Despite emotional pleas from several defense attorneys, a judge refused Tuesday to allow medical marijuana patients to use cannabis while out on bond — a decision met with low hisses in a courtroom packed with 13 defendants, their lawyers and supporters.
The 13 patients faced hearings following last week’s raids of a medical marijuana dispensary and a patients’ compassion club in Waterford, Michigan, reports Bill Laitner of the Detroit Free Press.
Waterford District Court Judge Richard Kuhn Jr. postponed the defendants’ pre-trial conferences, originally scheduled for Tuesday, until October.
Another four people arrested in the raid have not yet been arraigned, and therefore weren’t present Tuesday in court, according to officials.
About 60 people, including defendants, their lawyers, and medical marijuana supporters, gathered in front of the courthouse before Tuesday’s hearings to protest that their arrests were politically motivated by county law enforcement officials who are hostile to the Michigan Medical Marijuana Act.
Shirts reading “This is Michigan, not a Cheech and Chong movie!” were worn by about two dozen people in the crowd. The shirts were referring to a quote last week from Sheriff Michael Bouchard, who uttered those unfortunate words while criticizing medical marijuana establishments raided by his officers in Waterford and Ferndale.