Conviction In Wa Marijuana Dispensary Case

[bobandtorey]

SPOKANE, Wash. — A Spokane jury has decided that Washington's medical marijuana law should not be interpreted to allow for commercial dispensaries. Jurors on Thursday convicted a man who co-owned one of the city's first marijuana dispensaries of multiple drug trafficking charges.

 

Defendant Scott Shupe had argued that a broad interpretation of the law enables dispensaries to supply card-carrying patients, provided they serve just one patient at a time. Prosecutors disagreed, arguing that the law approved by voters in 1998 makes no such provision.

 

The Spokesman-Review says the case has been closely watched. While voters overwhelmingly decided to allow the medicinal use of marijuana, the ballot measure made no provision for how patients would obtain it, other than to allow them to grow a small amount.

 

Commercial dispensaries have opened throughout the state. Enforcement has varied by locale.

 

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2014528817_apwamarijuanadispensary.html

 

 

[+EdwardGlen]

Guess who's coming to a Michigan neighborhood near you?!

[bobandtorey]

Guess who's coming to a Michigan neighborhood near you?!

 

 

you think they will bust the ones that are open here? \

i do and when they do it will be bad i think

[greenbuddha]

Guess who's coming to a Michigan neighborhood near you?!

 

Yep, Ed,

 

Watch your OZs and your plant count my friend.

 

When they hear that the State is cooperating... slam bam thank you ma'am.

[+EdwardGlen]

you think they will bust the ones that are open here? \

i do and when they do it will be bad i think

 

Bad for dispensary owners... I'm surprised they aren't having 'Pre-Raid Going Out Of Business Sales".

 

if they truly believed in medical cannabis they wouldn't be pushing Lansing's buttons but that's exactly what they are doing.

 

As you guessed I'm not a fan of those carpet-baggers who have come to Michigan and are jeopardizing our current patient/caregiver system just to stuff their pockets full of money.

 

And you can be sure as soon as somethings happens they'll leave town fat with blood money and be laughing all the way to the bank, while stepping over the fallen bodies of suffering patients.

 

He who is greedy is always in want.

- Horace

[bobandtorey]

Bad for dispensary owners... I'm surprised they aren't having 'Pre-Raid Going Out Of Business Sales".

 

if they truly believed in medical cannabis they wouldn't be pushing Lansing's buttons but that's exactly what they are doing.

 

As you guessed I'm not a fan of those carpet-baggers who have come to Michigan and are jeopardizing our current patient/caregiver system just to stuff their pockets full of money.

 

And you can be sure as soon as somethings happens they'll leave town fat with blood money and be laughing all the way to the bank, while stepping over the fallen bodies of suffering patients.

 

He who is greedy is always in want.

- Horace

 

they'll leave town fat but only to return back here for court

[grewett]

Bob(andtori),

I respect you hugely and disagree with you to that same degree. My pet peeve is fuzzy thinking--defined here as grouping all dispensaries under the same term--the vast majority of illegal with the sliver of legal operators. Thinking that fails to differentiate those dispensaries modeled on the Michigan Judge's 8 page-opinion of 12-16-10, which are safe not from a either a MI bust or a fed bust but are safe from conviction, and those "keystone or more stone" that sell stone highs modelled on the street dealer and common trafficker. The Honorable Paul H. Chamberlain took 8 pages to say how a storefront does legal patient to patient and caregiver to patient transfers (note that--not sales,) that are legal under MMA of 2008, and constitute a valuable method of distribution to assure patient access via transfers. Transfers, not sales, is Chamberlain's underlying theme in the 8 pages. (I'm certain when writing he had one eye on fed concerns as well). Effecting mmj transactions that are not sales, how does one do that? TRANSFERS, NOT SALES is the theme of the watershed Chamberlain decision--unique to Michigan, as none other of the 15 states has its "Chamberlain." (He is no relation to me). His answer, in a phrase, is consignment with conditions.

The keystone dispensaries (58 of 66 in MI) are laughing at the cumbersome, inconvenient regimen Chamberlain approved. They are cheering the operating advantage that selling like a streeet dealer gives them over the sorry, slower, unnimble conditions the judge approved and told the sheriff to 'leave it alone,' (the dispensary in the case at hand that Burdick wanted shut down).

Burdick has appealed stating one of his reasons for appealing is that Chamberlain's decision (the only in Michigan on point on dispensaries) made it legal for any dispensary that followed this model to operate anywhere in Michigan, and he thinks it is impossible for any dispensary to shed the sales label. He's wrong of course, but it will take his losing in the Appeals Court and then the MI Supremne Court for him to admit it.

But that will be the point at which all across the state we will get 'sales' out of the dispensary lingo and universally operate doing transfers.

Transfers are hated. They're cumbersome and inconvenient consignments; not the cash and carry nature of the keystoners.

About half of MI's dispensaries have adopted the private club aspect (it raises revenue), but they've sniffed at the consignment aspect and continued keystoning.