Medical Marijuana News Story Abc

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I'll just leave this here

 

ABC News

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Yeah,you kinda need to retitle this.

 

DRYDEN (WJRT) -- (11/10/10) -- It's been two years since Michigan residents voted to legalize medical marijuana.

 

Last year, so-called dispensaries, where patients can buy, caregivers can grow marijuana and the two can interact, started popping up across the state.

 

Now the questions being asked are how should they be regulated and are they illegal?

 

Some law enforcement officials claim dispensaries are illegal because they're not addressed in the Michigan medical marijuana law. This summer, Lapeer County Prosecutor Byron Konschuh became one of the first in the state to padlock a facility in the small village of Dryden, claiming the operation was a drug house.

 

From the outside, it appears the two-story building and the surrounding landscape are the epitome of small town America.

 

"You wouldn't notice the dispensary at all. It's in a brick building, no sign. If you're not looking, you're probably just going to stop at a light or just drive through," Village Council President Patrick Betcher said.

 

That building in Dryden is now the battleground in a statewide war over medical marijuana.

 

"They're all coming down into Dryden now. That's the place to get your dope, if you need," Village Councilman Stan Roszczewski said.

 

Randy Crowl owns the bar across the street. This summer, he leased the building from the village. With the village's approval, he turned it into a medical marijuana dispensary. "Passed an ordinance in two different meetings, 7-0, to allow us to operate here. They are the ones who wrote the language describing what a dispensary is. We didn't do that, the village of Dryden did," Crowl told ABC12's Autumn Perry.

 

"It was handled like some beauty shop wanted to come into town and do business, and that's how it was formatted," Roszczewski said.

 

Village Council members hoped the dispensary would bring the rural town back to life, but they never anticipated the uproar that would follow.

 

"It's dot your i and cross your t's because you're walking on eggshells," Roszczewski said.

 

"We're on the forefront now, good bad or different," Betcher admitted.

 

In late August, Crowl says suspicions about the dispensary started to mount and complaints of illegal activity began coming in to local authorities.

 

"There's been an ongoing process that we've been open here for four-and-a-half months, no disturbances, no issues, backed up by our chief of police, and, all of a sudden, there is a change in the wind," Crowl said.

 

The first of three raids was carried out by the Lapeer County Sheriff's Department August 30.

 

"Search warrants were executed and searches were done based upon neighborhood complaints, based upon observations of police officers. There were all kinds of people coming and going," Konschuh said.

 

The building was padlocked after the raids, raising questions lawmakers across the state are trying to answer. What defines a dispensary? Are they legal? if not, how should they be regulated?

 

"The question is going to come down to whether a person who supplied medical marijuana to more than five patients is going to be considered a drug dealer under the law of the state of Michigan," Konschuh explained.

 

Crowl and his attorney are now in an uphill battle to reopen the dispensary. Konschuh says that will not happen, claiming a dispensary is illegal by law because it's not mentioned in the Michigan Medical Marijuana Act.

 

"What you got is very different views in very different communities," said Tim Beck, one of the authors of the Michigan Medical Marijuana Act.

 

Beck believes the prosecutor is misinterpreting it, creating an unnecessary fight in an unlikely town. "In Dryden, it's a test case, and that's really what's going on because this prosecutor believes that, in his mind, that this operation is illegal under the state law. And unless you can get the Legislature to clarify the law, which is highly unlikely that they're going to do it, then you have to take it through the court."

 

"It seems some of the proponents of the law, their intent is to make it so convoluted that we in law enforcement say OK, we give up. Let's stop wasting taxpayer dollars and enforce the language of the law, and throw up our hands and regulate, tax the crap out of it and help solve some of the state budget problems," Konschuh said.

 

As Konschuh builds his case, advocates and other lawmakers across the state are standing by, waiting to see the outcome. What happens in Dryden could set precedent for how dispensaries are defined and regulated.

 

"It's the local municipalities now that have to take the bull by the horns, and that's what we ended up doing now," Roszczewski said.

 

Some would argue what they're doing is too extreme. In October, the Dryden Village Council reworked its medical marijuana ordinance, making it illegal to allow a dispensary within the village's commercial district.

 

"I think we're making a wrong decision on where we are going," Betcher said. "I think Michigan law is fairly clear on what should be allowed and what can be allowed, and I think we are going contrary to that."

 

Wrong or right, the battle lines have been drawn in Dryden, leaving small town America struggling with an issue outside its realm.

 

"No municipality was ready for this. Even though we got hit, we were the first. Surrounding municipalities still aren't ready for this," Roszczewski said.

 

 

 

 

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