Royal Oak Allows Medical Pot Use, Not Production

[Retta]

Thursday, February 3, 2011

 

By Catherine Kavanaugh

For The Oakland Press

 

Royal Oak’s medical marijuana moratorium ends Thursday and new zoning regulations that some say fly in the face of state law go into effect.

 

The city took a hybrid approach to regulating medical marijuana by allowing qualified patients to use it while banning any kind of commercial or residential grow operations.

 

The new restriction narrowly adopted as a zoning ordinance clouds the line of legality for patients and caregivers who have been complying with the state law passed by 63 percent of voters in November 2008.

 

The city attorney said they would be grandfathered in, but no one knows what that means.

 

“A crop takes 60-90 days, then what? Is the next crop grandfathered?” asked a Royal Oak caregiver. “I’m not sure being grandfathered in really equates to anything.”

 

The man explained why he didn’t want to be identified.

 

“All kinds of people are scared to death their name will end up on some list and law enforcement will use it to bust them,” he said.

 

State law says a qualifying patient can grow up to 12 plants and registered caregivers can do the same for up to five patients for a total of 60 plants.

 

Royal Oak has about 300 medical marijuana patients, according to one unofficial estimate.

 

City Attorney David Gillam said everyone who is complying with the state law would be grandfathered in, but Royal Oak officials haven’t defined how patients and caregivers can show they meet the exception.

 

“We haven’t formalized any kind of a policy and when we do, it will have to be a living document,” Gillam said, explaining that the requirements to be legally non-conforming may have to be tweaked as new situations come to light.

 

Gillam said he met Monday with some department heads who will work with the Planning Department staff, which provides administrative support for zoning rules. However, Planning Director Tim Thwing wasn’t there and won’t be back until next week.

 

In the meantime, patients and caregivers are wondering if a date-stamped video or receipts for growing equipment would show they were following the state law before the city adopted its restrictions. They’re angry they have to worry about that at all.

 

“When this law goes into effect in Royal Oak, I won’t have the rights guaranteed to me by the state. That’s sick,” the one resident said Wednesday.

 

City Commissioner Michael Andrzejak, who voted against the new local law, said Royal Oak officials dropped the ball by not clearing the air about what constitutes being grandfathered in.

 

“The onus is on the city to articulate the grandfather provision, but we can’t do that before the law goes into effect,” Andrzejak said. “To me when you have a moratorium it is to do study and research and come back to the table with a thought-out plan.”

 

On Jan. 25, the commission considered several options before it approved the ordinance called the “Livonia model” with wording to specify Royal Oak was allowing medical marijuana use in a patient’s house.

 

“What we’re trying to get at is to allow personal use in homes, but not cultivation,” said city Commissioner David Poulton, who made the motion supported by city Commissioners Pat Capello, Terry Drinkwine and Chuck Semchena.

 

They wanted to address resident concerns about grow houses operating in neighborhoods and near schools and excess marijuana falling into the wrong hands.

 

Rick Thompson of Center Line, editor of the Oak-Park based Michigan Medical Marijuana Magazine, said growing operations already exist throughout Royal Oak. He came up with the estimate that the city has about 300 patients. His figure is based on Michigan having 10 million residents, Royal Oak having 60,000 residents and 49,000 medical marijuana patients being registered with the Michigan Department of Community Health.

 

“That means there are 295 patients in Royal Oak,” Thompson said. “I bet people thought it would be higher. This is a situation where a lot of attention is on an issue that is not as dangerous as it has been portrayed.”

 

City Commissioner Jim Rasor said his colleagues set up Royal Oak for a lawsuit and created problems for sick people who want to grow medical marijuana or get it from a nearby caregiver to relieve symptoms of cancer, multiple sclerosis and other diseases.

 

“What you guys are doing will cost us a bundle in court and at the end of the day you prohibit use of any medical marijuana except what — what the patient can find on the streets of Detroit or Flint,” Rasor told fellow commissioners Jan. 25.

 

Semchena said Royal Oak’s approach to regulate medical marijuana through the zoning ordinance takes away a threat to neighborhoods while allowing patients to use it without being criminalized by the city.

 

http://www.theoaklandpress.com/articles/2011/02/03/news/local_news/doc4d4a8a7a35dd6237371382.txt

[Cannastyle]

I'm truely amazed that these city officials can get away with such a thing. It is our right to grow our own meds, no?

 

I can't believe a city woud turn down easy revenue rather than setting themselves up for a lawsuit that will cost the taxpayers...

 

It seems Neil Rockind will be doing something with a lawsuit so we shall see...

[freemannabis]

I'm truely amazed that these city officials can get away with such a thing. It is our right to grow our own meds, no?

 

Tyrranical, Pseudo-Egalitarian War-Mongers Egomaniacally weilding their blood-thirsty Rod & Slaving Staff of rampant Oligarchy.

 

Is there ANYONE at all in any FREE-WILLED society on Earth that actually personally, willfully supports the inescapable madness of soul-imprisoning Government entities, that can only be sadistically coveted by soulless, Zombee Gatekeeper-Ghouls of a living h*ll, vain-gloriousy enthroned upon their anti-Humanitarian "Government Councils"?

 

These are the kinds of inhuman monsters that publically burn healers of lost and seeking souls on firey stakes, and drag in the dark of night from out of The People's free-ranging, peaceful garden-groves, to publically nail on leafless trees, harmless teachers of Truth and Wisdom, and publically and ruthlessly flog revealers of Neighborly Love and Caring, and blood-lusfully throw sharers of Faith and Hope and Compassion to the wolves dressed in sheeps clothing.

 

It's no surprise at all to me that truely, honestly free-minded souls will never - ever, ever - seek to "lead" any other living being.

 

Clearly, all free-minded souls residing in Michigan / America (and beyond) will agree:

 

Any place in Michigan / America (or anywhere else in the world) with any allegedly symbolic "Oak" ("royal" or otherwise) in the name and title is not a free-spirited place to be, as long as "WE The PEOPLE" perpetually "elect" ourselves to be enslaved by tyrannical rulers blood-crustily enthroned on ever more fiendishly foul and corruptable potty-chairs of city councils and boards, and other as inhumanly vile and heartless government entities.

 

TRUE "FREEDOM" and "INDEPENDENCE" is alive in our hearts and minds and communal lives, when growing multimillions of people everywhere fearlessly, compassionately voice our choice to stand up and say "YEA! YES, We May" and "YIPPY-YAY!" for our natural-born "right" and "liberty" to GROW and SHARE any HEALTHY HARVEST of NOURISHING FOODS like "HAPPY-HAY";

 

But, if that is indeed the TRUE FREEDOM & INDEPENDENCE we live and strive for, what then is the frightful frame and state of mind and spirit we're forced to be in called, when only an anti-free few decide to say "Nay," and the "Nays Rule," clearly revealing for all the world to see and wonder that - in the cold, slimey, power-lustful eyes of the Oligarchian Tyrannists of The World - the FREEDOM & INDEPENDENCE that WE The FREE-WILLED SOULS of Earth unitedly proclaim doesn't count?

 

Tyranny?

 

Oligarchy?

 

All that and then some!

 

 

Personally, on behalf of TRUE FREEDOM & INDEPENDENCE of "WE The PEOPLE," I choose LOVE.

 

What say you?

 

 

"Be Wise as Serpents; Gentle as Doves"

 

 

Be HEALTHY!

 

Be HAPPY!

 

Be FREE!

 

 

SHARE The CURE

 

HARVEST The HEALING