Ferndale Raid News

[Clear and Unambiguous]

Interesting news article here-

 

One thing that caught my eye here is that the Ferndale raid took place despite communication between the County and the business. I have highlighted that section of the article below.

 

Now, anyone who says the business owner should have contacted the prosecutor rather than the Sherriff needs to understand something. Cooper’s policy, as explained to me by her office, is that she would not comment directly on the legality of a business to anyone who asked. Rather, all questions would be directed to the Sherriff’s office. ]

 

This is starting to look like a con-job that only a “Crusader” could feel morally correct in orchestrating. Sickening.

 

By Sarah Cwiek, Michigan Radio (NPR affiliate)

 

Link-

http://www.publicbroadcasting.net/michigan/news.newsmain/article/0/0/1726124/Top.Stories/Oakland.County.case.tests.state.medical.marijuana.law

 

Full Article-

FERNDALE, MI (Michigan Radio) -

Clinical Relief has a non-descript storefront in a relatively quiet commercial corridor in Ferndale. There's no obvious sign this is a place to buy marijuana just a simple green cross and the store's name on the window. You buzz a doorbell and wait for the obliging click. In a clean, spare reception area, Barb Agro answers phones.

 

Agro tells a caller Clinical Relief isn't accepting new patients right now or selling marijuana. Agro shows off display cases that used to hold different strains of marijuana and other products like cannabis-laced lollipops. But the clinic is only doing patient referrals after Oakland County Sheriff's deputies raided Clinical Relief in late August.

 

Agro says they came in with masks on an guns drawn. "And ordered everybody down on the ground. They actually threw some patients down. Decided to take the computers, rip the phones out. Confiscated everything in here."

 

Police took four Clinical Relief employees to jail for several days. Sheriff's deputies also raided another dispensary in Waterford along with several homes, including Agro's. Now more than two-dozen people face drug-related felony charges.

 

Agro says the raids made her a widow: her husband, Sal, died of a heart attack just days afterward. A police dispatcher for 28 years, Agro says she's also not use to being considered a criminal."We've always been on the same side as the law, you know? I don't understand it. It just doesn't make any sense."

 

But that's not how Oakland County Sheriff Mike Bouchard and Prosecutor Jessica Cooper see it. Both declined interviews for this story, citing busy schedules. But they contend dispensaries are illegal under the Michigan Marijuana Act.

 

Clinical Relief co-owner Ryan Richmond disagrees. Richmond says he kept in constant contact with local officials, including Bouchard, as he developed the dispensary."Never was the sentiment These are illegal.' It was not ever once mentioned this was illegal," Richmond says.

 

Local governments, law enforcement and the medical marijuana community have all struggled to interpret this ambiguous law. Richmond says Clinical Relief tried hard to be a "model" for medical marijuana distribution. He says he had every incentive to be upfront, because he was acting primarily as an entrepreneur.

 

"This is something I never thought I would ever get into," he says. "It's just I saw an opportunity in the market. The law changed. And from what I could tell the players in the game were less than professional."

 

Richmond says his employees tried to do everything by the law as they understood it. He points out that undercover narcotics officers bought marijuana using fake, state-issued patient ID cards.

 

But Bouchard and Cooper have pointed out the Medical Marijuana Act only allows state-registered "caregivers" to provide marijuana for five registered patients which the undercover officers weren't. They also say inappropriate "hand-to-hand" drug buys took place inside the dispensary.

 

To make matters even more confusing, the Michigan Department of Community Health the agency that administers that state's medical marijuana program says it's not even sure whether the law allows for dispensaries or not.

 

"Unless the legislature solves that problem, we're in dire straits here," says Danny Victor, a lawyer who represents medical marijuana patients and caregivers. Victor says there are "two critical problems" with the law that a dispensary system could solve. The first involves rules for registered caregivers. Victor says the law allows them to grow more marijuana than they can legally sell. "As soon as they harvest it and it's smokeable or usable they're in possession of an illegal quantity," Victor says. "And there is no vehicle for them to get their medicine out of their hands."

 

Victor says the second problem involves patients who are too sick to grow or find their own marijuana legally. "They can't find or don't have a reputable caregiver who can provide them with an uninterrupted supply of their medicine."

 

Victor and others say the state legislature must clarify the law. Last month a Michigan Appeals Court Judge agreed. He called the law "a disaster," and warned that trying to interpret it is like navigating a never-ending maze.

 

Pre-trial exams for the nine Clinical Relief defendants took place earlier this month. A Judge will decide early next year whether there's enough evidence to go to trial, where conviction could mean prison time. Whatever the outcome, it's virtually certain this case will force someone whether it's higher courts or the state legislature to take action.

 

© Copyright 2010, Michigan Radio

[peanutbutter]

oops .. I'll be back

[bobandtorey]

good read are Lawyer used this part"Unless the legislature solves that problem, we're in dire straits here,"

[master.caregiver]

its horiable that these things are still happening after almost 3yrs of the law yea its broad it had to be to try to make it so every patient or care giver could do there thing without fear of prosecution but the gov. ofc.say its to broad there is grey areas.............oh my well here let me draw u a picture in crayon so every one can under stad it new legislation prop 420: any one with a medical maryjuana liceneced by the state of michigan is excempt from all previous sced 1 wrote marijuwana laws.

 

then under that have all of the laws of proabition for marijuwana for the state

 

SOLVED LOL

[ms19]

As I understand it, the police involved in this raid used cleverly constructed false identification cards to trick the dispensary into supplying them medical marijuana. Fabrication and use of fraudulent, state-issued ID's are both felonious crimes. Committing s crime in order to persuade others to commit a crime sounds like entrapment to me; in which case the dispensary and its parties involved aren't guilty, but the police involved are guilty of multiple felonies.

[Homes Labs]

As I understand it, the police involved in this raid used cleverly constructed false identification cards to trick the dispensary into supplying them medical marijuana. Fabrication and use of fraudulent, state-issued ID's are both felonious crimes. Committing s crime in order to persuade others to commit a crime sounds like entrapment to me; in which case the dispensary and its parties involved aren't guilty, but the police involved are guilty of multiple felonies.quote]

 

And nothing will happen to those officers that committed the crime.