Medical Marijuana Marauders of Ludington

[XLFD]

In November of 2008, about 63% of the voters passed an initiative that became state law in December 2008 called the Michigan Medical Marihuana Act , heres the ballot wording that garnered nearly 2/3 of Michigander's votes: 

The proposed law would:
• Permit physician approved use of marijuana by registered patients with debilitating medical
conditions including cancer, glaucoma, HIV, AIDS, hepatitis C, MS and other conditions as
may be approved by the Department of Community Health.
• Permit registered individuals to grow limited amounts of marijuana for qualifying patients in
an enclosed, locked facility.
• Require Department of Community Health to establish an identification card system for
patients qualified to use marijuana and individuals qualified to grow marijuana.
• Permit registered and unregistered patients and primary caregivers to assert medical reasons
for using marijuana as a defense to any prosecution involving marijuana.

 

Let me be frank, I voted against the MM Act and thought there would be a lot of characters around Michigan looking like Shaggy or Cheech if it passed, and thought reefer madness would run wild, as the law gets abused.  I have never used marijuana, nor do I advocate anybody picking up the habit of doing so, but I now think I was wrong in my vote at the time.   It's a freedom issue -- just like you don't have to own a gun to fully support the Second Amendment.

 

The state law has several aspects of confidentiality as for the health care providers, dispensers and users of the Medical Marihuana (MM) which are not even available by the FOIA, but can be accessed by law enforcement from the State on a need-to-know basis.  Thus since the Act became law in 2008, as long as you were licensed and registered with the State of Michigan and followed the rules, which includes operating a dispensary at least 1000 ft. away from school grounds and 250 ft. from another dispensary, you would be operating within the law. 

 

Enter meddlesome local governments, that try to exert extra power through enacting ordinances that try to further regulate MM because they do not want any MM in their area due to the prevailing desires of the lawmakers, prominent citizens, local mores, and/or law enforcers.   

Many local governments have tried to regulate MM beyond the State's law by either using zoning laws or licensing at the local level.  Many local governments have been sued in Michigan over local regulations and ordinances conflicting with State law: Royal Oak, Bloomfield Twp., St. Joseph, Lansing... just to name a few.  The state law does not prohibit local governments from making their own ordinances restricting where and how MM is to be handled, but if the local governments go too far they run the risk of subjecting their taxpayers to pay an awful lot of needless legal fees to assert their authority, and there is a fair chance of them losing if they have. 

The initiated state law can stand by itself, as it has rules for licensing under the Public Health Department and the previously noted restrictions on placement of any dispensaries within school zones or too close to other dispensaries. Back in May 2011, after putting out moratoriums on MM, our sister city on the lake, Manistee, who shares the same City Attorney as Ludington put out a fairly straightforward ordinance that follows the spirit of the initiated law for the most part:  5-4- 2011 Manistee Medical Marihuana Ord..  The only thing they add extra is the concept to "license a location", whatever that means.  A location can not register through a form, a location cannot cultivate MM. 

A FOIA to the Manistee City Manager had me receive this form, a blank application to "license a location".  It offers a few questions that a location could probably not answer, and has a spot for the location's initials at the end.  It has the Manistee MM Officer review the location's answers and decide whether the location is approved or not.  By State Law, they don't have that authority, and the City is using the color of law to receive information that the Public Health Department declares confidential between them and the human licensee at that location  MCL 333.26426 (h). and the violations of breaching that law is steep.  More than what the citizens of Manistee want to pay for to enforce an ordinance whose main purpose is to let local law officers know where the MM is, which is contrary to the intent of initiated State law.

 

But even though Ludington and Manistee have the same law firm as their City Attorney, they have much different policies.  Let's look at the timeline of Ludington's approach to MM.

11-4- 2008 MI voters vote for MM with 63% of the vote.

12-4-2008  MI MM Law is put into effect

1-24-2011  (over two years later) MM moratorium is put into effect by Ludington City Council, is passed over to Planning Commission for policy creation.

2-1-2011  Planning Commission (PC)  Nekola says MM has been referred to them.

4-5-2011  PC admits 4 inquiries on dispensaries, suggests combining it as a zoning and licensing issue.

5-4-2011  PC sends zoning district idea to City Attorney.

Also, on this date Manistee adopts their MM ordinance.

6-7-2011  CA Wilson recommends licensing procedure with zoning and setbacks at PC meeting.

7-5-2011  At PC meeting, Chief Mark Barnett is said to have finished license procedure, and it is being reviewed by CA Wilson.

7-11-2011 City Council extends MM moratorium for another 6 months to 1-31-2012.

 

In January, they extended the moratorium to 5-31-2012, and at the last council meeting are scheduled to adopt the ordinance tomorrow, 5-7-2012.  One thing that totally scares me about this ordinance, without even seeing it, is the drafters.  LPD Chief Mark Barnett and CA Richard Wilson are the drafters of the Workplace Safety Policy.  A bit of local legislation that permits the trampling of constitutional liberties, described in detail throughout my posts of the last year. 

The secrecy behind the new ordinance rivals the secrecy behind the other policy.  The map of the areas where MM is permitted and the law itself have been suppressed from passive review by the public.  You either have to go to City Hall and request to look at it or do a FOIA request.  I did that and was shocked by what I saw.  Here it is:

I could write a treatise on why this is badly written law, as was the Workplace Safety Policy but here is a brief rundown of what I find most troubling about this proposed ordinance:

 

1)  The licensee is mandated to have a "required security device" (31-02) that alerts both the owner and the LPD when unauthorized access occurs at the MM facility.  This could be fairly costly, violative of the confidentiality of the licensee, and is not part of the State law. 

2)  The licensee is restricted to conduct business between 8 AM and 6 PM (31-04 b3), thus if they conduct business during the other 14 hours of the day, two people could receive misdemeanors.  The State laws have no set time limits.

3)  In 31-05 it states the license can be denied if the licensee has a felony, or a misdemeanor involving assault or theft.  The State only denies applicants if they have a felony involving illegal drugs. 

4)  In 31-07 the ordinance sets out an appeal process that has the City Council and Attorney decide on the appeal, unlike the State law which allows appeals to the court systems (the judicial branch).  No confidentiality provisions are set forth here, or elsewhere in Ludington law, and the prospective licensee may have his name and intention brought out at a public forum if he appeals.

5)  The restriction on distribution in 31-07 is arbitrary and not found in any portion of State laws.  A misdemeanor can occur if you distribute MM in any other way than a "one on one" basis.  This isn't part of State law, and neither is the word "deal" used in State law as it is in 31-09, with the negative connotations that infers.   

 

There are more troubling aspects of the 5 page law, but the most disturbing of all is the draconian restrictions on where you can operate from.  As per State law, you can operate nowhere within 1000 ft. of school property, but under (31-04 b2) an operating facility cannot be within 600 ft. of a daycare facility, a community college facility, a medical facility, a doctor's office, public buildings, public parks, churches and other MM facilities.  That means you can't be within two blocks of such properties, and if you think that covers most all of Ludington, you would be right.

Here's Chief Barnett's map of the areas that would be permitted to be licensed by the City.

 

The brown are "allowable areas" for MM.  You see some brown at the top, you can get rid of most all of that, as the left side are negated by two licensed day care facilities on N Harrison that are not pictured, and the left side is within 1000 ft. of the soccer field.  So if you discount Oxychem to the far south, Lake Michigan Carferry property, Conrad Industrial Park property, and railroad property west of Madison, you're reduced to an area less than 1% of the size of the rest of Ludington.  With the state's laws you get the same map as you would for RSO's that looks like this City Map for MM without new restrictions.  More than 50% of the City is open to entrepreneurs and caring caregivers to ply their trade, if they so wish. 

 

Barnett's and Wilson's law restricts the State's defined legal areas about one hundredfold.  Effectively, nullifying the word and intent of the initiated law, and banning most of Ludington from even thinking about going into MM.  Barnett's motives can be presumed from his past stances and actions with respect to "spice dealers" and "Girls Gone Wild". 

Manistee's Wilson, who represents Ludington as one of our stable of City Attorneys, could have more ulterior motives by making Ludington's law much more controversial and restrictive.  After all, if it is challenged, he stands to make a ton of money in legal fees at $185 an hour, defending this lemon law.  And the effective ban on MM dispensaries in Ludington, makes the much less restrictive Manistee MM law much more palatable for start-up businesses in this field.

 

You will also note that there is nothing in the Ludington ordinance to save your MM business if a church, daycare, etc. moves into your neighborhood after you establish yourself.  If one of the many facilities do move in a couple of blocks away, Chief Barnett may show up one day with a warrant for your arrest on a misdemeanor.  This ordinance is the Workplace Safety Policy on drugs!

 

[Marty Redman]

I wonder why Manistee and Ludington are so different in this?  I agree with you X, I think the Manistee law firm is poised to make a killing out of challenges to this.  Just another reason to hate Manistee.  Nice in depth analisis.

[XLFD]

I think Manistee is a nice town, and are going in a better direction than Ludington is.  The smartest move was getting the law firm Gockerman, Wilson, Saylor, Hesslin, Glancy and 51st Circuit Court Judge Richard I. Cooper's son, Craig to represent the City O' Ludington, and Consumer's Energy in Judge Richard I. Cooper's 51st Circuit Court.  Pure genius, pure profit all around.

[Marty Redman]

I dare someone to apply for a license once they pass this tomorrow, make that a double dog dare.  Aquaman, I see you in the chat box, don't you owe some property in the brown, or am I mistaken?

[Sweater Cows!]

X, you are wrong here "Thus since the Act became law in 2008, as long as you were licensed and registered with the State of Michigan and followed the rules, which includes operating a dispensary at least 1000 ft. away from school grounds and 250 ft. from another dispensary, you would be operating within the law. "

I am not sure where you got that information but it is not correct. There are NO provisions for operating a dispensary in the MI MM Act. By the act it is not permitted nor prohibited. In fact it is not even mentioned.

The MMA allows two things, #1 a person as a licensed patient to grow and posses plants and marujuana and #2 a caregiver assigned by the licensed patient(ie. licensed caregiver) to grow and posses plants and transfer marijuana. That is it.

I have to say I am happy you have come to see that the Medical Marihuana Act, at least to me is about LIBERTY, not marijuana. Just like the second amendment, I don't have to possess or use the product to support the individuals right to do as they please with there own life.

If you remember we went to the MMA Rally at the Capitol last Sept. Well there are some horrible liberty infringing bills in our state legislature, way worse even then the COL's. I will post more later.

[XLFD]

Thanks for the heads up When, I had looked at some other ordinances like the Manistee ones that uses those exact numbers and referred to those as state law; you are 100% right, there is no such zoning rules in the Act.  It does state you can't have it on a school bus or school grounds, but that's different.  The RSO map would then refer to what places would be good if the Manistee laws were Ludington's. 

With that in mind, the Ludington ordinance effectively cuts it very dramatically from being able to run one in over 90% of the City down to less than 1% when you don't include the LMC, OXY, Railroad, and Conrad IP.

The morons we have imported into Ludington to make rules like this (MB, JS, and RW), just don't get it.  We have went 3.5 years with MM being legal, and doomsday hasn't arrived just because we don't have a local MM ordinance.  Ordinances like this just waste local money when they get challenged by civil-righters, and makes the City intelligentsia look foolish.

[Sweater Cows!]

Did they have any news of this previous to your report in the LDN?

[XLFD]

Yes they did have an article in front of the last meeting and in front of this.  The first one was on E-LDN on Sunday and went to print on that Monday, right before the public hearing on it.  This time they ran with it in Saturday's paper, after never telling when the vote on it was to be the last time. 

That they are trying to pass it the same day they have a matinee with 3rd graders makes you scratch your head, until you realize that few people would think of debating this ordinance in front of third graders.  And this really should have been debated more, because it's more likely to bite the City in the butt than bounce the bogeymen out.

Thank the Building & Licenses Committee chaired by Never-returns-my-E-mails Kaye Holman, with former LPD chief Taranko and Nick Tykoski, the sign-dude for their rubber stamping of this.

[Sweater Cows!]

I think the fed. laws about drug-free school zones are referred to a lot by people in the MM crowd so as to avoid fed involvement. for example, why was it limited to 72 plants? because in fed law the threshold for being a "big-target" threat is 100 plants and those that wrote the state law wanted to stay in that limit.

[AQUAMAN]

I don't know Marty, I have to check in with X, my newly appointed attorney, on this possible scenario of finely edged property locales. Gives me a new $$$ idea now though.........hardy har. On the more sober side of the law here though, I still see the COL and LPD interfering again in haste and lofty ideals for a reversal and intentional interference with the State of Michigan lawmakers. Squashing and pulverizing individual rights is becoming a popular gimmick, just like the new cat ordinance. It makes city officials look obsolete in mindless attempts to attack, twist, divert, and overlord the very foundations of our state law makers that have far more authority than the weasels presently on the CC and running the city in general. This perceived perception of an aloof and arrogant attitude conclusion of the city mindset I have mentioned before, is only ratified and compounded into reality by this newly proposed ordinance. I predict it will pass Monday nite with majority votes, in fact I predict it will pass unanimously, given the pressure and uninformed council members that vote blindly on such issues without any reading and studying in advance of the situation at hand. Kinda like the Nancy Pelosi types, just vote for it, you can read the new law later....lol in disgust and anger for another "fixed agenda of activities" that we will all have to live with into the far future.

[XLFD]

Yeah, Aquaman, I'd definitely say you're in one of the new 'bong districts', until they realize that nearby bunker housing City workers will be reclassified into a "public building".  If so, maybe you can take it offshore, and redub your boat the "Reefer Rascal".  It may just get you more business, LOL.

I think you're right on the votes.  The three committee members, and x-cop Castonia, are all they really need.

[AQUAMAN]

Vote was 5-1, so who voted against the ordinance, out of curiosity? Also, wasn't there some absent, we have six wards and councilor at large, plus the Mayor too, isn't that 8 votes?

[Sweater Cows!]

I would guess tykoski as the nay, he is in a younger age than all the rest and would hopefully understand like most gen-X that "reefer madness" is a gimmick by the gov't and prison-legal- industrial complex to make a profit.