Three Medical Marijuana Facilities In Ferndale And Waterford Were Raided Wednesday Night

[iwombat]

http://wwj.cbslocal.com/2010/08/26/police-raid-two-local-medical-marijuana-clinics/

 

Police Raid Local Medical Marijuana Clinics

WWJ Newsroom

 

Daily J AM,Top News

8/26/2010

6:39 am

 

(WWJ Photo/Ron Dewey)

 

Three medical marijuana facilities in Ferndale and Waterford were raided Wednesday night by area police agencies and the Oakland County Sheriff’s Department. Fifteen arrests were made in connection with the raid.

 

Sheriff Micheal Bouchard says they confiscated $750,000 worth of majijuana, but that’s not all.

 

“In addition there were other drugs that were encountered, hand-to-hand transactions in the streets outside of these facilities, numerous guns were confiscated,” said Bouchard.

 

The Clinical Relief Center on Hilton in Ferndale and Everybody’s Cafe in Waterford were raided.

 

Bouchard says the facilities were operating outside the voter passed medical marijuana law, and in some cases sold the weed without asking for a doctor’s referral.

 

WWJ Newsradio 950 spoke with Nick Agro, co-owner of the Ferndale facility.

 

“One of the patients that was handcuffed and thrown down on the floor was my mother, who was a 28-year veteran of the Lake Orion police department. And, while sitting there with police, one of the police officers said that this came down from the State’s attorney general office,” Agro said.

 

“They [police officers] took medical records, they violated patients’ rights. It’s very clear in the state statute that no patient or care-giver is to be arrested. Every individual that was in that place [the clinic] was either a patient or a care-giver, and Oakland County has taken charge and arrested those individuals,” he said.

 

A spokesman for Attorney General Mike Cox said later Thursday that his office did not order the raids.

 

 

http://www.mlive.com/news/detroit/index.ssf/2010/08/oakland_county_authorities_rai.html

 

Update: 15 arrested in raids on medical pot clinics; Ferndale co-owner says authorities 'took medical records, violated patients' rights'

Published: Thursday, August 26, 2010, 1:04 PM Updated: Thursday, August 26, 2010, 2:39 PM

Jonathan Oosting | MLive.com Jonathan Oosting | MLive.com

medical-marijuana.jpgFile PhotoMedical Marijuana

 

Two days after the Ferndale City Council voted to lift a moratorium on medical marijuana businesses, authorities on Wednesday evening raided the city's only existing pot dispensary.

 

The Detroit News reports local police officers and the Oakland County Sheriff's Office Narcotics Team raided the Clinical Relief medical marijuana clinic on Hilton Road. Police tell the newspaper they also raided Everybody's Cafe in Waterford Township and private residences in Oakland and Macomb counties.

 

Authorities say at least 15 people were arrested in the raids on allegations the clinics were violating Michigan's medical marijuana law, as approved by voters in 2008.

 

"They took medical records, they violated patients' rights," Clinical Relief co-owner Nick Agro told WWJ-AM 950 this morning. "It's very clear in the state statute that no patient or care-giver is to be arrested. Every individual that was in that place (the clinic) was either a patient or a care-giver, and Oakland County has taken charge and arrested those individuals."

 

Ferndale City Council on Monday voted unanimously to amend zoning ordinances by allowing medical marijuana-related business owners to apply for special land use permits in light industrial, heavy industrial and -- provided less than 20 percent of their space is use for growing -- office districts.

 

Clinical Relief, which opened in June, operates outside the newly-approved zoning areas but was grandfathered in to allow it to remain at its current location. Ferndale police previously toured the facility and deemed it legal.

 

Mayor Craig Covey joined reporters at the clinic earlier this summer, discussing how medical marijuana-friendly policies could help suffering patients while attracting new businesses to the city.

 

"Some people seem to be freaked out about this subject," he told the Daily Tribune. "We seem to have gotten overly dramatic about this issue, but we’re not the first city to have one of these facilities and there are others that I know of in Oak Park, Southfield, Ypsilanti and Ann Arbor."

 

Co-owner Ryan Richmond, a real estate investor from Royal Oak, told the newspaper in June that Clinical Relief obtains marijuana from registered caregivers and does not grow or allow smoking on the premises.

 

"Most medical marijuana patients don’t have a source they can go to consistently," he said. "Once patients have a state-issued ID card they are welcome to come to our clinic."

 

Update: The Michigan Attorney General's Office says it was not involved in the raids.

Related topics: Medical Marijuana

[+EdwardGlen]

I just watched a short piece on channel 2 NEWS at 11am on these raids and bias wouldn't even begin to describe the story. The video and monologue were edited and written as if these people were caught with a ton of cocaine instead of legal medication.

 

I cannot stand the way they show video of a persons seized personal property and always they show guns in an attempt to show how violent we MM users are.

 

I'm freaking mad as hell at this state and its impotent AG mike cox who could have and should have stepped up and stopped all this BS, but no. He stands silent and looks like a complete fool in the states eyes and read some of the republican blogs, he has no career in national politics and I hope its because of his total failure on a state level.

 

I feel so badly for the patients who have to watch their stress level and are having to deal with the possibility of being raided on a daily basis for using alternative medicine to aid in their attempt to improve their quality of life.

 

Our "leaders" have no concern for us. They do not care if we suffer at the hands of out of control law breaking police agencies. If our rights are violated, property seized or medicine destroyed we don't matter to them.

 

It's time we make ourselves matter.

[MR GREENTHUMB]

couldn't agree with you more Indica J I can't believe cox held on to a job this long!

[michiganfootballisawesome]

I can't stand Mike Cox either! He's really not doing anything useful for our state... Thank goodness he lost in the primaries

[md999]

I like way they said a FEW guns were found, but during the news con. there was like 25, from a pistol all the way to 2 assault rifles. Propaganda at its finest....

[DJ_420]

Please keep me posted on this as I visited that clinic at a time or two. I also seen the reports on the news channel and the ALLEGEDLY evidence of criminal activity they confiscated. I am hearing that they (Oakland County Sheriffs) are using this as a test case so there can be a clear definitive case on the law books concerning dispensaries. Wow can't believe they would destroy medical mj....I am wondering that when their case isn't proven what will they do with the evidence seized?

[JayBuds]

I am wondering that when their case isn't proven what will they do with the evidence seized?

 

Likely stand on their toilet with the bathroom fan running at 1am while their wife and kids is asleep every night smoking it.