Editorial Approves Aclu Suing Livonia

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In Metrotimes, Dec. 8--14, 2010 issue, p. 12, "News Hits" writer Curt Guyette details the suit and attorney's takes and opines the ACLU chose the ideal plaintiffs--the patients the voters had in mind (Linda Lott with MS and c.g./patient/husband/grower Robert Lott), and lays out her concerns with being arrested in Birmingham or Bloomfield Hills for carrying her medicine in her vehicle and him for growing their medicine in a Livonhia warehouse he owns, over the new law the City Manager says 'does not target medical mmj.'

 

My apologizes I don't know how to link or present the article here--knowledge of growing does not equal techy competence and when I went to school the internet was barely a glint in the eye of AL Gore.

[detroitdjs]

Smoked out

What communities enacting pot bans should consider

 

By News Hits staff

 

Published: December 8, 2010

 

 

Anyone who still thinks Michigan's medical marijuana law is just some ruse intended to provide partiers with a get-out-of-jail-free card needs to meet Linda Lott. And municipal officials who think they are doing their residents a service by passing ordinances intended to circumvent that voter-approved law need to take notice as well.

 

In fact, the Michigan branch of the American Civil Liberties Union is making sure that they get the message that any attempts to infringe on the legitimate rights of patients and caregivers are going to be fought every step of the way.

 

A resident of Birmingham, Lott has suffered from multiple sclerosis for 28 years. An autoimmune disease that affects the brain and spinal cord, MS is an affliction that grows worse with time. Now in her 60s, Lott, who is both legally blind and confined to wheelchair, is subject to what she describes as terribly painful spasms that can strike unexpectedly at anytime.

 

According to the lawsuit, along with prescription drugs, Lott's physician — Dr. Sami Mounayer, the director of neurology at Beaumont Hospital — has also approved her use of medical marijuana, which helps alleviate the spasms and the intense pain they cause. It also helps her to sleep at night.

 

Her husband of 32 years, Robert, owns a printing business in Livonia. Recently diagnosed with glaucoma, Robert, like his wife, is a registered medical marijuana patient. Pot helps relieve the pressure on his eyes' optic nerves.

 

In other words, it is hard to imagine a better pair of people to serve as the plaintiffs in what is sure to be viewed as a major test case challenging the expanding pattern of restrictive ordinances being passed by Michigan municipalities.

 

As ACLU attorney Daniel Korobkin pointed out, "These are exactly the kind of people Michigan voters had in mind when they passed the Medical Marihuana Act."

 

Last week, the ACLU filed suit on behalf of the Lotts in Wayne County Circuit Court, claiming ordinances passed within the past year by Livonia in Wayne County and Bloomfield Hills and Birmingham in Oakland County are "clearly illegal."

 

Despite overwhelming approval of the medical marijuana law by Michigan voters in 2008, all three cities passed ordinances declaring, in essence, that it is illegal to engage in any activity or enterprise that is "contrary to any federal, state or local laws."

 

Because any use of marijuana remains illegal in the eyes of the feds, these ordinances are seen as an attempt to sidestep the will of Michigan voters and put legitimate medical marijuana users and their licensed caregivers at risk of arrest.

 

When asked previously about the issue, Bloomfield Hills City Attorney William P. Hampton told News Hits that the ordinance in question was not a "medical marijuana ordinance." While it may not make specific reference to medicinal pot, the claim that the ordinance didn't have that as its target is laughable.

 

Attempts to get comments from others supportive of these ordinances were unsuccessful.

 

Bloomfield Hills City Manager Jay Cravens told the Free Press: "We don't have a ban on medical marijuana. We have an ordinance that deals with medical marijuana."

 

Linda Lott, at last week's press conference, expressed fear of being targeted by police for possessing her medicine while traveling in a car or visiting private social clubs she and her husband belong to in Bloomfield Hills.

 

"I don't believe I should have to choose between living in pain and living in fear," she said.

 

Robert Lott, as Linda's caregiver, is likely concerned about being targeted for arrest for growing weed in a Livonia warehouse he owns. Critics of the state's medical marijuana law claim it is badly crafted and needs to be clarified. Robert Lott, in essence, has the same gripe about the ordinances. "I don't know what the rules are, and I'm a rule-follower," he said.

 

It may be that the intent of the ordinances is to clamp down on so-called "compassion clubs," where medical marijuana is dispensed to patients. The legality of these operations is not spelled out in the act approved by voters, creating a legal gray area that has yet to be sorted out by the courts.

 

However, ACLU lawyers claim, the ordinances based in these three cities — as well as similar ordinances in a growing number of other cities — are so broadly written that they infringe on the clearly defined rights of patients and caregivers.

 

News Hits agrees. We also think that this is a matter of concern for more than people such as the Lotts. Because of this clearly wrong-headed approach, municipalities in cash-strapped cities are going to be wasting precious resources fighting this issue in court. After all, in all three cities, voters overwhelmingly approved the 2008 ballot measure, so it is not like officials are trying to cater to the desires of their constituents. Just the opposite.

 

If cities want to take a stand on dispensaries, then let them do so directly. But let Linda and Robert Lott, and tens of thousands of other people like them, grow and take their medicine without having to live in any fear of being arrested.

 

http://metrotimes.com/news/smoked-out-1.1074012

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thanks for the help WHOME? and detroitdjs

[freemannabis]

Thanks for the heads-up.

 

"News HIT Staff".

 

Tell me THAT moniker doesn't have any "number" of "anti-social" connotations?!

 

(Just sayin'! wink, wink ; )

 

The "thing is": Any time that I am faced to have to read between the acrid lines of all the whizz-yellow tainted B$ propaganda like we're daily force-fed to choke-down and starve from lack of any hint of any shred of fact by the yellow-banded army of mucky, yucky, smelly moo crap-slingers of the World's power-hungry "pawn"brokers' war-mongering media moguls of controversy that relentlessly spew their pet hate-words and other dasterdly deeds from their stinky-stenched, filth-encrusted fingertips festeringly connected misdirectly to their putrid minds, who self-servingly as viciously promote perpetual war on "We The People" with their charcter-assassinating "Word-Weapons of Mass-Destruction" pointedly aimed at nothing less than the final, total anihilation of we their not-so-fellow man, like the anti-frees' automatic machine gun-fired WWMDs aimed against the Will of We the People, open-fired upon any and all seekers of freewill and personal choice, by the harmful, slangful use of the libelous label "pot," all my eyes are conditioned to see through the hazy maze is the "hidden hand" of blood red-handed/yellow-journalism, ever provoked as spawned by inhuman, international corporate greed ... "of by and for" ... impersonal, anti-social, governmental "class"-profiling.

 

Though, perhaps, less unfortunate for some, as these now infamous "test cases" will (hopefully and finally for all) prove for us to be, this not so critical article pertaining to our daily plight and fight for our natural-born "rights" to be free, publicized by the "News Hit Staff," merely [unmindfully or otherwise] deploys the WWMD ... only three times.

 

YIPPEE!

 

 

***

 

WWMD 1) "What communities enacting pot bans should consider".

 

WWMD 2) "Pot helps relieve the pressure on his eyes' optic nerves".

 

WWMD 3) "When asked previously about the issue, Bloomfield Hills City Attorney William P. Hampton told News Hits that the ordinance in question was not a 'medical marijuana ordinance.' While it may not make specific reference to medicinal pot, the claim that the ordinance didn't have that as its target is laughable."

 

***

 

Well, if Baby Steps is what we can get; Then, Baby Steps is what we's gonna' have.

 

At least, for now.

 

Certainly, such harmfully biased undertones set even more stinky-chinking beween the much too muddled lines of understanding; But, one must concede, to give "due credit when [but not necessarily where] due credit is due; And, to be sure, this noteworthy published opinion is much more white-washed than many or most of the yellowest of the rest that we've all ever seen.

 

On this clearly worthy note of monumental proportions do myself and the "News Hit Staff" perfectly agree:

 

"Let Linda and Robert Lott, and tens of thousands of other people like them, grow and take their medicine without having to live in any fear of being arrested"

 

So "people like them," (that is, "WE The PEOPLE," like you, and we and all our family and friends, with our spouses, significant others, each and All OF US) WILL ALL ...

 

Be FREE!

 

to BE FREE!

 

HARVEST The CURE

 

SHARE The HEALING