Mi Attorney General Prefers A For-Profit Medical Marijuana System

[imapatient]

In recent decisions and actions, Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette has supported a for-profit medical marijuana system as written in the plain text of the Michigan medical marijuana voter approved ballot initiative. Many States that are more organized and structured in dispensing the medicine like Colorado, have a for-profit system in place. However, California, a State that has a medical marijuana law described by Federal prosecutors as "lax and unstructured", relies on a not-for-profit model to dispense marijuana to it's residents.

 

While no formal opinion has been released by the AG's office, we have heard from several attorneys across the State that his office, which administers the Michigan Medical Marihuana Act and controls the office that issues business registrations, has only authorized licenses to for-profit applicants that are State approved caregivers. In fact our own application for Marijuana Patients Organization, Inc, a Michigan not-for-profit corporation, had challenges registering with the State.

 

Initially our not-for-profit application was denied and flagged, assumably for the use of the word Marijuana in conjunction with our non-profit request. Our counsel spoke with the corporate division (ie. Bill Schuettes staff) and explained that we cannot be denied based on our name alone. Several faxes and calls went back and forth, pretty much the same response, "you cant do that, or that, or that, no!"

 

In short the corporate division (ie. Bill Schuettes staff) rewrote our entire purpose, the section on the form that asks, "what does your entity do?" Instead of waiting any longer fighting the obvious abuses of power, we agreed to the proposed purpose in order to open a bank account, change our mailing address, you know do all the things any respectable organization does before starting. We were explained that not-for-profits cannot be engaged in caregiving duties and the following sentence was absolutely mandatory and made part of our corporations purpose:

 

The corporation will NOT engage in the growing, distributing, or selling of marijuana.

 

Had we not asked to be recognized as a non-profit entity, this would not have been the case, and our for-profit entity would have been able to use the standard purpose that most corporations enjoy.

 

Recently Hon. Daniel O'Brien, a circuit judge from Oakland County asked if profit is protected under the Michigan Medical Marihuana Act, clearly our Attorney General feels it is. The statute points to clear language of income, compensation, and who would dispute that any activity is assumed engaged in a for profit scheme, unless of course you live in China, or the statute is crystal clear. How do we forget all about capitalism, democracy, free enterprise, plain language, all these words we teach fifth graders but easily ignore when there is a not-politically-easy decision to make.

 

Happy Holidays from your friends at the Marijuana Patients Organization, Inc, a Michigan not-for-profit corporation not engaged in the growing, distributing, or selling of marijuana.

[CleanD]

darn...and i thought they said something to this effect...darn. ;-)

 

 

this isn't really showing that they are in favor of 'for profit' biz models...just that they won't allow for you to take umbrage under the 'not for profit' model. their actions show they are quite against a for profit model as well. but wouldn't that be a great forward progression, if they did proffer such a model...?

[bobandtorey]

darn...and i thought they said something to this effect...darn. ;-)

 

 

this isn't really showing that they are in favor of 'for profit' biz models...just that they won't allow for you to take umbrage under the 'not for profit' model. their actions show they are quite against a for profit model as well. but wouldn't that be a great forward progression, if they did proffer such a model...?

 

Am not sure

[CleanD]

i hear ya...there are problems w the CO model...and ultimately, i personally would want to make sure that the mom&pop, localized model be fully protected & championed, which it can be fostered if regulated properly.

 

but a for profit model would move us away from the csa & towards decriminalization. between the choice of two evils...i'l take wallyweed over jailing people.

[Plasticbubblehurricane]

Schuette and his Republican and conservative-Democrat allies in the state legislature have gutted the MMMA, forcing closure of most medical marijuana dispensaries, frightening growers, cutting the business of hydroponics stores, and introducing confusion and dread for sick and dying people and their caregivers.

 

Schuette recently told Michigan law enforcement officers that they could seize legal medical marijuana and plants from legal medical marijuana patients and never return the medicine, even though the MMMA specifically forbids such actions.

 

Schuette's family history and dictatorial ideology show the links between the drug war, other wars, corporate criminality, war crimes, and crimes against the environment. You see, Schuette's parental lineage can be traced back to one of the most dangerous corporations on earth: Dow Chemical.

 

Schuette's grandfather, Carl Gerstacker, was CEO of Dow during an era when Dow committed many corporate crimes. Of course, when you're one of the world's major chemical companies, it's hard not to commit corporate crimes. The indiscriminate, profit-driven manufacture and use of agricultural and industrial chemicals is slowly poisoning our entire planet.

 

Attorney General Schuette has a long history of personal and financial connections to Dow Chemical, and not just because his grandfather and stepfather were captains of the company. He managed a "philanthropic" trust in honor of Gerstacker, and grew up in Midland, Michigan, hometown of Dow Chemical headquarters – long recognized as a corporate-owned town, polluted, corrupted and run by Dow. Schuette was quarterback for the Dow High School football team.

 

•Dow Chemical made Agent Orange, the toxic herbicide used during the Vietnam War that killed millions of acres of trees, plants and ecosystems while also causing birth defects, mutations, cancers, and deaths for Vietnamese, and for American soldiers and their children.

 

•Dow Chemical made napalm, otherwise known as jellied gasoline, which was used to burn the flesh off of and incinerate tens of thousands of civilian Vietnamese during the Vietnam War. In 1969, Schuette's grandfather Carl Gerstacker as Dow's CEO defended the company's manufacture of napalm, saying it was a profitable product and good for the US military to use.

 

•Dow Chemical was the contractor running Rocky Flats nuclear weapons plant located near Denver, Colorado. During the period of 1951 to 1974 when Dow was in charge, a number of avoidable mishaps and management errors led to widespread radioactive contamination and harm to people and land.

 

•Dow Chemical's Midland operations are known for polluting Michigan and the Great Lakes region with toxins such as dioxin. Dow's way of handling this was to find researchers who'll say dioxin doesn't harm anybody.

 

•When protesters in the early 2000's began showing up in Midland to protest Dow's corporate criminality, protesters were viewed as hippies, environmental whackos, niggers, outsiders, and tree-hugging commies who would harm Dow's ability to provide jobs. As with many polluting industries and corporations (such as Canada's Tar Sands oil project), people who protest on behalf of environmental and human health are portrayed as "job-killers." Not only did protesters from outside the community face hostility, but Midland residents who've sought legal recourse against Dow for pollution and health problems have also faced opposition from Dow loyalists afraid that if the company was forced to clean up its act, jobs might be lost.

 

•In 1984, American-based Union Carbide Corporation killed at least 8,000 citizens living near a Union Carbide pesticide plant in Bhopal, India, when a cloud of toxic gas from the plant engulfed the community. Since then, at least 20,000 more people have died due to the toxic gas. In bed with American corporations then as it is now, the Indian government refused to let Bhopal residents sue Union Carbide individually, and negotiated a pathetic settlement that allowed Union Carbide to abandon the plant and pay an average of $420 for each Indian person killed or injured by the company's negligence. Dow Chemical took over Union Carbide in 2001, and has refused to consider Union Carbide's Bhopal disaster as any part of Dow's responsibility. Not only has Dow refused to step up to compensate Indian victims for the ongoing environmental and health disaster that the toxic chemicals continue to cause in Bhopal, Dow even had the audacity to sue women protesting the Bhopal disaster in front of Dow's Mumbai, India headquarters. This is in line with Dow's worldwide corporate presence and its network of public relations propagandists who've filled the internet with attacks on environmentalism, applause for toxic chemicals such as Dow's DDT, and websites disguised as anti-Dow which are actually run by Dow and contain embedded lies designed to make people feel good about Dow.

 

•Dow Chemical is a leading user of animal testing, and has refused to end the practice.

 

•In a September, 2010 article in the journal Critical Criminology, investigator Rebecca Katz absolutely documents worldwide criminal corporate behavior by Dow, and the hypocrisy of the company in its attitude and handling of Dow's poisoning of people and the environment. The report, entitled "The Corporate Crimes of Dow Chemical and the Failure to Regulate Environmental Pollution," is a thorough and undeniably true indictment of Dow. Given that the United States Supreme Court has ruled a corporation is a person, Dow Chemical could be brought up on criminal charges of mass murder, easily found guilty, and sentenced to death. And yet, Mr. Morality Anti-Marijuana Bill Schuette is proud of Dow Chemical and his association with it?

 

 

Do we really want people like this telling us how to live our lives? So many drugs are FDA approved and they're finding out they're horrible for people and/or ineffective. Marijuana has been provenly effective for many patients with a wide variety of symtoms

 

 

Sign the petition: http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/fire-michigan-attorney-general-bill-schuette/

[nexplosion]

This guy is scum. Again, follow the money, you usually trace it to a pathetic sack of human waste who writes all the laws.

[Timmahh]

they force you be be a Profitable entity if you are transfering, thus illegal and a traget under BS' un christian ideals.

 

 

This looks like entrapment, subversive abuse of power, and clear grounds again of conflict of interest. he can not claim to be protecting the Citizens of Michigan out of one side of his mouth and the talk out the other side about making citizens criminals so he can prosecute them.....