Cannabis On Craigslist: A Prosecutor’s Dream

Michigan Medical Marijuana Act: Keep Your Business and Medicine Legal

By Matthew Donigian, NORML Legal Intern, University of Illinois — College of Law

On November 4, 2008 63 percent of Michigan voters enacted the Michigan Medical Marihuana Program (MMMP). Since then the state of Michigan has registered over 75,000 patients, who are now eligible to receive medical marijuana for serious illnesses, including: Cancer, HIV, glaucoma, severe/chronic pain, severe nausea, etc.  Like other states that have passed medical marijuana legislation, Michigan has made it safer for patients to receive the medicine they need. However, marijuana is still far from legal and both patients and caregivers should be sure they understand the limitations of the law.

Under Michigan law, medical marijuana patients who have been issued a registry identification card are allowed to possess up to 2.5 ounces of marijuana. Additionally, medical marijuana patients are allowed to grow up to 12 marijuana plants. However, patients who choose to grow their own marijuana cannot have a caregiver growing for them.

Caregivers are required to follow laws similar to those followed by patients. Caregivers are required to register with a patient and the state, and if they are not registered as a patient’s caregiver, they may NOT dispense marijuana to them. Caregivers are allowed to register up to 5 patients and may possess up to 2.5 ounces of marijuana for each of their patients. If a patient has registered a caregiver to cultivate marijuana for them, the caregiver may keep up to 12 plants for that patient.

Restrictions on the amount of marijuana caregivers may possess can be difficult to follow.

First, it is difficult to know how much marijuana a plant will yield. This can make it difficult to stay under the 2.5 ounces allowed per registered patient. And since the weight of marijuana fluctuates greatly when the plant is being dried it is difficult to know how much a plant has actually yielded.

Second, many caregivers use clones of plants when growing a new crop, by taking cuttings from an adult plant and re-rooting them. However, the legality of this process is unclear. Since Michigan law only allows 12 plants per patient, and since clones must be cut before a plant has fully matured, it can be difficult for growers to stay under the number of plants allowed by the law, especially if they are already maintaining 12 plants per patient at the time the clones are cut.

In order to avoid having more marijuana than the law allows, many growers have begun selling dried marijuana or plants to qualified patients via craigslist. It is important to understand that this practice is ILLEGAL. Caregivers are only allowed to sell marijuana to their registered patients, and any other sale could lead to fines and/or imprisonment.

Caregivers should re-evaluate their business practices in order to stay in compliance with the law. Their safety and the safety of their patients depend upon it. More information may be attained by visiting Michigan’s online resource for the MMMP or by calling NORML at (202) 483-5500.

America’s One Million Legalized Marijuana Users

At Least 1 – 1.5 Million Americans are Legal Medical Marijuana Patients

Market for these patients in sixteen states and D.C. estimated at between $2 – $6 billion annually

MAY 31, 2011 - We don’t know his or her name, but somewhere in one of sixteen states and the District of Columbia is America’s 1,000,000th legal medical marijuana patient. We estimate the United States reached the million-patients mark sometime between the beginning of the year to when Arizona began issuing patient registry identification cards online in April 2011.

16 states, the Capitol, and ONE MILLION legal marijuana users.

Between one to one-and-a-half million people are legally authorized by their state to use marijuana in the United States, according to data compiled by NORML from state medical marijuana registries and patient estimates.  Assuming usage of one-half to one gram of cannabis medicine per day per patient and an average retail price of $320 per ounce, these legal consumers represent a $2.3 to $6.2 billion dollar market annually.

Based on state medical marijuana laws, the amounts of cannabis these legal marijuana users are entitled to possess means there is between 566 – 803 thousand pounds of legal usable cannabis allowed under state law in America.  These patients are allowed to cultivate between 17 – 24 million legal cannabis plants.  There may possibly be more, as California and New Mexico “limits” may be exceeded with doctor’s permission and some California counties explicitly allow greater amounts, so there may be as much as 1 million pounds of state-legal cannabis allowed under state law in America.

Yet after fifteen years, one million patients, and a million pounds of legal marijuana, few if any of the dire predictions by opponents of medical marijuana have come to fruition.  Medical marijuana states like Oregon are experiencing their lowest-ever rates of workplace fatalities, injuries, and accidents.  States like Colorado are experiencing their lowest rates in three decades of fatal crashes per million miles driven.  In medical marijuana states for which we have data (through Michigan in 2008), use by minor teenagers is down in all but Maine and down by at least 10% in states with the greatest proportion of their population using medical cannabis. (more…)

Marijuana Testing State Services Applicants: It’s Just Wrong!

[The following blog post was submitted to the NORML Women's Alliance by Anna Diaz.  NORML's commentary appears in italics below.]

Urinalysis, the most common form of non-impairment drug testing, unfairly targets marijuana consumers because it screens for the presence of inert byproducts that may be detectable for days, weeks, or even months in former users. This is a discriminatory policy that sanctions individuals who may have consumed cannabis at some previous, unspecified point in time, while most other forms of illicit substance use to go undetected. Further, most marijuana consumers are responsible, hard-working Americans.  NORML believes that it is arbitrary and counterproductive to single these people out for punishment simply because they fail a urine screen.

By: Anna Diaz

NORML Women’s Alliance Steering Committee

Oregon NORML, Co-Founder

I am a Latina, a forty-year cannabis consumer, a medical cannabis patient and a single mother who has had to use public assistance more than once.  In 2011, Oregon and three other states have introduced bills that would require drug testing for people receiving public assistance.  I am writing to present my unique perspective on this issue, and why individuals should oppose any type of legislation that would require drug testing for all applicants looking to receive state services such as food stamps or unemployment benefits.

Many groups oppose this type of legislation including the ACLU, various associations of health professionals and, not surprisingly, organizations that assist women and children in need.  One in five Oregonians receive state services.  Currently, 79% of Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits – formerly food stamps — in Oregon are awarded to households with minor children.  65% of the children receiving those benefits live in single parent households.  Most of these single parents are women.

The ACLU position states, “Drug testing welfare recipients as a condition of eligibility is a policy that is scientifically, fiscally, and constitutionally unsound.”

Michigan is the only state to attempt to impose drug testing of welfare recipients – a policy that was struck down as unconstitutional in 2003. The ACLU challenged the mandatory drug-testing program as unconstitutional, arguing that drug testing of welfare recipients violates the Fourth Amendment’s protection against unreasonable searches. The case, Marchwinski v. Howard, concluded when the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit upheld a lower court’s decision striking down the policy as unconstitutional.

Further, studies show that welfare recipients are no more likely to use drugs than the rest of the population.  70% of illicit drug users are employed.  The ACLU also cites research showing that drug testing is an expensive and ineffective way to uncover drug abuse.

OR NORML's Madeline Martinez (with award) and Anna Diaz with NORML founder Keith Stroup, Esq.

This is an expense our state cannot afford under any circumstances.  The average cost for drug testing in Oregon is $44.00 a person.  According to the Oregon Department of Human Services, there were 361,300 households (682,000 people) receiving SNAP benefits in February 2010.   The caseload is expected to increase until it peaks at 398,000 cases (760,000 people) in April 2011.  That is a 10 percent increase from February 2010.  Even if only one test were administered per household, the cost of drug testing would be roughly $17 million dollars.

While there are several reasons to oppose this type of legislation in all four states, there is one reason that is very unique to Oregon. Oregon is the only state that has a medical marijuana program.  The problem is that the Oregon Medical Marijuana Act does not protect patients who also receive public assistance.  Should this bill pass, many of us would be ineligible for services just because we are legally using our medicine.

The ACLU is right. Drug testing welfare recipients as a condition of eligibility is unsound on all levels for everyone, including taxpayers.  It discriminates against medical cannabis patients, is a waste of money, and will hurt single parent households, which in turn, hurts our children.

Please send a message to the Oregon Legislature and ask them to oppose any type of drug testing legislation.  It only takes a few minutes, and you can do it right now.  Here is an example of what you can say to get you started:

“Please oppose any legislation that incorporates drug testing as a part of the law.  Our state cannot afford the expense, and these bills discriminate against disabled medical marijuana patients.”

2010 Election Update: Cooley Leading In Polls Is Bad News For California Medical Marijuana Patients, AZ’s Prop. 203 Continues To Trail

Though the race for California‘s next Attorney General still officially remains undecided, Republican candidate Steve Cooley is now leading Democrat Kamala Harris by some 26,000 votes. The Los Angeles Times reports that at least 850,000 ballots — mostly mail-in ballots that arrived in election offices on election day — still need to be counted, and that the race remains far from over.

The race for California Attorney General has significant implications for the distribution of medical cannabis in California, as Cooley has previously pledged to prosecute dispensaries that engage in over-the-counter cash sales of marijuana to authorized patients. In October, while serving as Los Angeles District Attorney, Cooley declared that state law bars sales of medical marijuana, and opined: “The vast, vast, vast majority, about 100%, of dispensaries in Los Angeles County and the city are operating illegally, they are dealing marijuana illegally. … The time is right to deal with this problem.”

Present Attorney General guidelines, issued under former A.G. (now Governor-elect) Jerry Brown in 2008, authorize the distribution and non-profit sales of medical cannabis in California by qualified “collectives and cooperatives,” but warn that ‘storefront’ business that engage in the for-profit sales of medical marijuana “are likely operating outside the protections” of state law. Cooley has long maintained that California dispensaries that engage in over-the-counter sales to customers do not meet a legal definition of ‘collectives’ or ‘not-for-profit’ entities.

By contrast, San Francisco District Attorney Kamala Harris has previously voiced strong support for protecting the legal rights of patients who use cannabis medicinally.

In Arizona, Proposition 203 is still trailing — now by some 6,600 votes — with more than 100,000 still remaining to be counted. If passed, the Arizona Medical Marijuana Act, would permit state-registered patients to obtain cannabis legally from licensed facilities.

Arizonans have twice before — in 1996 and again in 1998 — voted in favor of medical marijuana ballot measures, though neither proposal was ever enacted by the legislature. This year’s proposal was sponsored by the Arizona Medical Marijuana Policy Project, an affiliate of the Marijuana Policy Project.

In Michigan, voters elected vocal medical marijuana opponent Bill Schuette to be the state’s next Attorney General. Schuette was a vocal opponent against Proposal 1, the 2008 voter initiative that legalized the physician-authorized use of medical cannabis. While running for Attorney General, Schuette continued to campaign against both medical marijuana and broader efforts to halt the prosecution of non-medical consumers. Since the election, however, Schuette has yet to weigh in on whether he will use his office to target and prosecute the state’s emerging medical cannabis dispensaries.

Finally, in Connecticut, state officials have officially declared Democrat Dan Malloy as the state’s next Governor. Malloy had been in an exceedingly close race with Republican opponent Tom Foley.

Malloy has reportedly voiced support for decriminalizing marijuana for adults, and also supports the legalization of medical cannabis. Malloy’s predecessor, Republican M. Jodi Rell, vetoed legislation in 2007 that would have allowed for the legal use of marijuana by those authorized by their physician. In recent years, lawmakers in Connecticut have expressed support for both medical marijuana and decriminalization.

Saginaw Cops And DEA Reflexively Destroy Medical Marijuana Patient’s Property

Unfortunately, what happened to medical marijuana patient Edward Boyke, Jr last month in Michigan is hardly an aberration as NORML still receives calls and emails nearly every day from lawful medical marijuana patients being terrorized by local and federal drug agents, often destroying their legal supply of medical cannabis and cultivation equipment–effectively making the arresting cops prosecutor, judge and jury.

Thankfully, in Saginaw Michigan, post this embarrassing incident with Mr. Boyke, police seem to now ‘get it’.

Only patients and advocacy groups (like the nearly 30 NORML chapters in Michigan and other pro-reform organizations in the state, such as Americans for Safe Access) are working to keep law enforcement honest and respectful of the needs of medical cannabis patients.

Question: Is the Saginaw County Sheriff’s Department and DEA going to compensate Mr. Boyke to the tune of $7,000 after they illegally destroyed his private property?

Medical marijuana grower releases photos of basement after police visit; Saginaw County sheriff’s officials say destruction policy will change

By Gus Burns
The Saginaw News

May 20, 2010

Photo taken by Edwyn W. Boyke Jr., 64, of Saginaw Township, after police raided his home and destroyed his grow setup.

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SAGINAW — In response to the new medical marijuana laws, Saginaw County sheriff’s deputies will discontinue their policy of destroying grow equipment when they serve search warrants at the homes of medical marijuana patients or caretakers, Saginaw County Sheriff’s Detective Randy P. Pfau said.

“Instead of destroying property, we’ll take everything in a forfeiture and let a judge make a decision on whether they’re allowed to have that property back or not,” Pfau said.

The second look at the policy is a response by the department to the public concern regarding action taken by deputies and federal Drug Enforcement Agency agents in the basement of the home owned by Edwyn W. Boyke Jr., 64, of Saginaw Township, Pfau said.

Police raided Boyke’s home on April 15, because they say he violated drug laws, and destroyed his grow operations, which Boyke said cost him $7,000.

“It’s so new to us, this new law, so we’re acting on protocol that’s been in place… forever with manufacture of marijuana,” Pfau said.

Pfau said the old norm was to take a portion of the grow equipment to present as evidence and document with rest with photographs and inventory sheets, so they didn’t need to confiscate sometimes large setups.

Because the possession and farming of marijuana is no longer inherently illegal, due to the new state medicinal laws, Pfau said deputies will adjust their procedures.