Wyoming, Mich. Bans Medical Marijuana Within City

[Croppled1]

Posted: 7:45 a.m. Dec. 7, 2010

Wyoming, Mich. bans medical marijuana within city

ASSOCIATED PRESS

 

Marijuana advocates have vowed to boot a west Michigan city council out of office after they unanimously voted to ban medical marijuana.

 

 

 

Wyoming Mayor Jack Poll says city council's vote Monday night to make medical marijuana illegal within city limits is "not a vote against the people that need this medication."

 

He said medical marijuana should be dispensed like other legal drugs.

 

Michigan voters approved medical marijuana use in 2008. Federal law still prohibits the sale and cultivation of the drug.

 

John Ter Beek, a lawyer who has sued the city, said he was to meet today with the American Civil Liberties Union to pursue an injunction on Wyoming's ban.

 

The Grand Rapids Press and WOOD-TV say he also plans to recall council members

 

 

 

 

http://www.freep.com/article/20101207/NEWS06/101207008/Wyoming-Mich.-bans-medical-marijuana-within-city#ixzz17TCywJ2F

 

 

 

Wyoming's medical marijuana ban spawns threat of City Council recall effort

Published: Monday, December 06, 2010, 9:49 PM Updated: Tuesday, December 07, 2010, 7:18 AM

Matt Vande Bunte | The Grand Rapids Press

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WYOMING — Marijuana advocates want to kick the entire City Council out of office for enacting a ban on the drug that state law permits for medicinal use.

 

The council Monday reaffirmed a November vote, giving the ban a second and final reading that makes medical marijuana illegal within city limits.

 

Mayor Jack Poll, a pharmacist, and his peers said the voter-approved state law is dangerous because it does not regulate distribution of marijuana through typical medical channels.

 

Now Wyoming voters may be asked to choose which they stand behind: The 2008 statewide marijuana proposal or the elected seven-member council?

 

A lawyer who has sued the city now also plans a campaign to recall all seven elected officials: Sam Bolt, Dan Burrill, Kent Vanderwood, William Ver Hulst, Joanne Voorhees, Richard Pastoor and Poll.

 

John Ter Beek said he was scheduled to meet today (12-7) with the American Civil Liberties Union to pursue an injunction on Wyoming’s ban. He also is recruiting volunteers to circulate recall petitions.

 

“If I have to be recalled because I vote on preserving safety in our community, then so be it. Move somebody else into my chair,” Pastoor said. “The only way to handle (medical marijuana) is like we handle any other drug.”

 

In line with statewide results, voters in 27 of 28 Wyoming precincts supported the marijuana proposal in 2008.

 

“They went against the will of the voters,” Ter Beek said of the council’s actions on Monday.

 

Lynette Brunink, manager of Grand Rapids Alternative Care, a Grand Rapids Township clinic that certifies a patient’s medical need for marijuana, said the ban “is just like taking insulin from a diabetic.”

 

Dan Van Dussen, a marijuana patient from Holland, feared the decision may set precedent for other communities exploring regulation of medical marijuana.

 

“They’re making a knee-jerk reaction from a pharmacist’s point of view,” Van Dussen said. “What they do here, Holland is going to look at it and say ‘Wyoming did this.’”

 

The medical marijuana law permits licensed caregivers to grow up to 60 plants and distribute the drug to as many as five licensed patients, who can possess up to 2.5 ounces at a given time.

 

Ver Hulst said the medical marijuana proposal “sounded good (in 2008), just like apple pie and motherhood.” But “I guess I assumed it would be properly controlled by medical dispensaries,” he said.

 

He and his colleagues said medical marijuana should be dispensed through pharmacies. There’s also concern that enforcing the state law would burden city police at a time when Wyoming’s budget is strapped.

 

Jazmin Valencia, a recovering alcoholic, agreed with city leaders, saying odor from a marijuana patient who lives in her Wyoming apartment building creates unwanted temptation to break her sobriety.

 

“I feel I should be safe at home and I don’t feel that I am,” Valencia said. “We should push for more regulations. There is a better way to do it.”

 

Poll said he is “not at all” fearful of being recalled because the 2008 marijuana proposal was passed “without full knowledge of the ramifications.” Voters would not endorse the same proposal today, he said.

 

“I have a major problem with the way this is being dispensed,” Poll said. “This is not a vote against the people that need this medication. This is a vote against the way it’s being dispensed.”

 

http://www.mlive.com/news/grand-rapids/index.ssf/2010/12/wyomings_decision_on_medical_m.html

 

Looks like Poll needs to go to Oaksterdam University , earn a degree in Naturapathy ,along with studying the three putative species of the genus Cannabis , indica , sativa and ruderalis ! Then make room in the Family Fare Pharmacy for compassion and the thousands of strains , food products and oils the patients seek to self treat with .

 

16.4 millions Americans use Cannabis each month 104 milion have used it in their lives (1) . They are already self taught in how to handle the herb , having purchased their medicinal herb underground from the relatives of the settlers of Wyoming Michigan who refer to themselves as the " Outfit " " bootleggers" or "N.Y. Mob" - for several decades .

 

We have no problem as patients with buying hundreds of strains, oils ,and food products from Poll at Family Fare for $4 a gram in addition to growing our own . Its just what do we do in the meantime until he gets that oligopoly up and running with the billions in investment it will require under Pharmacuetical regulations ,along with decades of FDA forms and no research allowances that have to be caught up to make it all possible .

 

I don't think the voters who said Yes to the MMMA really couldn't read , understand the confines the Act was written in under Prohibition nor want patients to be manipulated by the FDA , Whitehouse , DEA ,other Govermental or Corperate interference any longer .They just wanted patients to have the healthy choice to grow something that gave them comfort and share it amongst themselves if qualified under the act -without the fear of arrest , discrimination , forfeiture , fine and loss of medical routines and or freedom . This is a natural herb its not prescription medicine in its natural form . Hug Jack and educate don't hate like prohibitionists often do !!!! I just know Jacks going to get this right eventually and hopefully without becoming ill or injured like it took for so many of us who didn't see the light previously - I just like to think it's part of my God's master plan . Happy Holidays and Patients First .

 

Here's Jack at work:

 

http://www.mlive.com/grpress/business/index.ssf/2008/11/spartans_dw_family_fare_stores.html

 

(1) Whitehouse http://www.whitehousedrugpolicy.gov/drugfact/marijuana/marijuana_ff.html

[bobandtorey]

The city wants to be a test case and this may be good because once they get sued then it will stop other citys

[1337Gr33n]

Wyoming govt act like a bunch of urban ostriches. they wanna act like the world is still some kind of Laura Engall's Wilder novel. (as if it actually ever was.)

as ani difranco once said, in her song, "Tis of Thee"

 

they caught the last poor man

on a poor man's vacation

they cuffed him and they confiscated his stuff

they dragged his black donkey down to the station

and said, o.k., the streets are safe now

all your pretty white children can come out and see spot run

and they came out of their houses

and they looked around

but they didn't see no one

 

my country 'tis of thee

to take swings at each other on the talk-show tv

why don't you just go ahead and turn off the sun

'cuz we'll never live long enough

to undo everything they've done to you

undo everything they've done to you