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Woman Who Ran Two Marijuana Dispensaries In Kent County Gets Jail, Lecture From Judge


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GRAND RAPIDS, MICH. (WZZM) - A woman arrested on two separate occasions for running marijuana dispensaries in Kent County was sentenced to jail Monday by a judge who told her “ignorance of the law is no excuse.’’

Eileen Dee Shaw, 52, said she did everything she could to operate within the confines of Michigan’s Medical Marijuana Act while running dispensaries in Cascade and Plainfield townships.

“I made every effort to try to understand the law and comply with it. I truly just wanted to help people,’’ she told Kent County Circuit Court Judge George Quist on Monday. “It was with every good intent that approached this and truly did just want to help medical marijuana patients.’’

The Michigan Supreme Court in Feb.  2013 ruled that dispensaries are not protected under Michigan’s Medical Marijuana Act, although enforcement varies county-to-county. Kent County law enforcement in the last two years have conducted more than a dozen raids, including February and May, 2014 raids at Eco Options dispensaries operated by Shaw.

“Ignorance of the law is no excuse; you’ve probably heard that old adage and it’s true,’’ Quist said.

Shaw’s troubles began when the aroma from her Eco-Options dispensary on Cascade Road SE drew complaints from a neighboring business.

In Feb. 2014, members of the Kent Area Narcotics Enforcement Team conducted an undercover buy of about five grams of marijuana from the store. A month later, they got a search warrant and retrieved processed marijuana, marijuana-infused snacks and hard candy, hash oil, hash and drug paraphernalia, court records show.

Within two months of the Cascade Township raid, Shaw reopened a second Eco Options store on Plainfield Avenue near East Beltline Avenue NE.  A police raid soon followed. A May, 2014 search of the business turned up marijuana, marijuana-infused products, hash, THC oil, marijuana candies and drug paraphernalia, court records show.

Shaw, who was present during the May raid, told KANET officers she allowed medical marijuana patients to obtain products in exchange for donations, court records show.  “Shaw further said that there are approximately 200 members in the business,’’ a KANET officer wrote in a probable cause affidavit.

Shaw was arrested and charged with seven marijuana-related offenses from both operations. Her son, 26-year-old Jared Reed was charged with selling marijuana and hash oil to an undercover informant at the Plainfield Township business.

 

The two took the case to trial, rejecting a plea deal that would have resulted in no jail time.  A Kent County jury in March convicted them on several counts, including delivery/manufacture of marijuana, a four-year felony.

“On the trial date or certainly shortly before that you were offered a deal where the prosecutor said you wouldn’t have to spend any jail time and you could get probation and they’d drop the charge against your son,’’ Quist told Shaw prior to sentencing. “That was the deal that was offered. You just rejected that.

“Instead, you wanted to go to trial and a lot of resources were spent trying this case,’’ Quist said. “The jury convicted you of six separate counts of delivering and manufacturing marijuana and of maintaining a drug house.’’

Quist sentenced Shaw to 270 days in the Kent County Jail, but with credit for time already served, she’ll serve a little less than 7 months. Reed was sentenced 90 days, but with credit for time served he’ll be out in about a month.

The judge sentenced them both to straight jail time along with fines and court costs; no probation was ordered. “You’ve kind of been through enough rigmarole I think,’’ he told Reed.

Meanwhile, efforts are underway in Lansing that would allow tightly-regulated medical marijuana dispensaries to operate in Michigan.  The state House in October approved plans to create a highly-regulated medical marijuana industry that would allow patients to purchase marijuana products at storefront dispensaries, such as Eco Options.

 

http://www.wzzm13.com/news/crime/woman-who-ran-two-marijuana-dispensaries-in-kent-county-gets-jail-lecture-from-judge/153207813

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Yeah, it bugs me to no end to continually read how disp's are only 'trying to help patients'. bah

Or... "save our access", "safe access". bah again.

Profit  :money:  is the main motivator to open a store front.

If 'helping patients' was the true goal, they would all remain caregivers with a full registry of 5 patients.

 

 

jm02

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Im only helping pt's and trying to make a good living while im at it!  I dont have to be linked to the pt's thru the registry, all I have to do is have 1 pt or actualy no pt's, I can be a pt and grow my own, and I only need a lil bit so I can open a store front and sell all of my overage's and any other pt or c.g's overages, I only pay 150 and oz but I get around 400 and oz from the poor sick pt's I am helping!

 

But your honor, Im just helping the pt's, Just because I own a home in grosse pt, and palm beach and arizona from my cash from helpiing pt's dont make me a bad person!   After all Im just helping pt's!

 

Its all about the poor pt's,  They need me to over charge them so they can have their choice of meds and I can pay my bills!

 

The law says a pt can get their meds any where, Why cant I sell it to all of them?  It is just to help the pt's!  I have no financial interest in this, I cant even afford a good attny, I had to open a go fund me page so I could still keep up with the house's, cars, and bill's, I can afford an attny, All of my ill gotten gains from pt's are paying for alll of my luxury's,

 

Im not hurting any one, Im only helping pt's spend their minimal ssdi checks on meds I supply for them!

 

Its only for the pt's!

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Im only helping pt's and trying to make a good living while im at it!  I dont have to be linked to the pt's thru the registry, all I have to do is have 1 pt or actualy no pt's, I can be a pt and grow my own, and I only need a lil bit so I can open a store front and sell all of my overage's and any other pt or c.g's overages, I only pay 150 and oz but I get around 400 and oz from the poor sick pt's I am helping!

 

But your honor, Im just helping the pt's, Just because I own a home in grosse pt, and palm beach and arizona from my cash from helpiing pt's dont make me a bad person!   After all Im just helping pt's!

 

Its all about the poor pt's,  They need me to over charge them so they can have their choice of meds and I can pay my bills!

 

The law says a pt can get their meds any where, Why cant I sell it to all of them?  It is just to help the pt's!  I have no financial interest in this, I cant even afford a good attny, I had to open a go fund me page so I could still keep up with the house's, cars, and bill's, I can afford an attny, All of my ill gotten gains from pt's are paying for alll of my luxury's,

 

Im not hurting any one, Im only helping pt's spend their minimal ssdi checks on meds I supply for them!

 

Its only for the pt's!

 

Now good sir, tell us how you really feel about dispensaries :)

 

peace mon

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I commend LARA for giving caregivers an opportunity to verify patients' marijuana registry information before providing them with medical marijuana.

 It is irresponsible to believe subsequent raids, arrests, confiscations, court opinions, patient privacy loss etc......are truly helping patients.

They do give you the opportunity to know your pt is legal!

 

You get a c.g card and the pt's name is on the back, you are allowed to have 5 pt's and you can be a pt, you can have 12 plants per pt, and 2.5 oz's of ready to use mm in your possession, dont forget, they also can have 2.5 oz's in their possession the same time you have 2.5, so in reality between you and 5 pt's you could potentialy have 2 MI lb's at your disposal!

 

any how you know your pt's are legal when you recieve that hard card!

 

I guess what you were saying is,,,,,,,You want despense's to be able to check if a pt is realy a pt?   I guess we should just open our registry to any one who can afford to run a back ground check on some one, let all gun shops check out the registry while we are at it, I mean remember us pot heads are more dangerious with guns than people on oxci, morphine, opoids in general, They also can drive better than pot heads, the can keep their meds right on their laps and pop em while they drive! 

 

Lets let our neighbors check the registry so they can make sure what their smelling is legal!

 

:butt2:  :lolu:

 

edit= bawahahahahahahahahahahaha!  :blow-a-heart:

Edited by phaquetoo
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com·mend
kəˈmend/
verb
verb: commend; 3rd person present: commends; past tense: commended; past participle: commended; gerund or present participle: commending
1.
praise formally or officially.
"he was commended by the judge for his courageous actions"
synonyms: praise, compliment, congratulate, applaud, salute, honor;

 

actually tongue in cheek describing how we as cg's are able to stay legal utilizing the suggested LARA system. same thing you repeated.  dispensaries dont do what we do because they couldnt make money that way. just like we dont make money dong this legally. to make money as a provider today one most likely would have to indulge in those pesky gray areas.

Not for dispensary sake, but for the cash grab maybe, instant verification of cards/status/change forms  would be swell. you could potentially register and remove 10 patients a day that way. I dont suggest this for dispensary's, or caregivers, but it would be convenient for those wishing to roll that way.

I have no idea why they are treated with a lighter hand than the us caregivers in court. it isnt fair, and I wont help them with ideas to continue. 

Edited by grassmatch
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actually tongue in cheek describing how we as cg's are able to stay legal utilizing the suggested LARA system. same thing you repeated.  dispensaries dont do what we do because they couldnt make money that way. just like we dont make money dong this legally. to make money as a provider today one most likely would have to indulge in those pesky gray areas.

Not for dispensary sake, but for the cash grab maybe, instant verification of cards/status/change forms  would be swell. you could potentially register and remove 10 patients a day that way. I dont suggest this for dispensary's, or caregivers, but it would be convenient for those wishing to roll that way.

I have no idea why they are treated with a lighter hand than the us caregivers in court. it isnt fair, and I wont help them with ideas to continue. 

Bro I was going to a court case for a friend, He was facing 2 fellonies, mean while a depsensarry was running literaly across from the court house!

 

Go figure eh!

 

Peace

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Bro I was going to a court case for a friend, He was facing 2 fellonies, mean while a depsensarry was running literaly across from the court house!

 

Go figure eh!

 

Peace

 

someone connected was running that disp across the st from the court house.  i hear that how it works in adrain

 

 

thats messed up. we shouldnt be surprised. i hear its always been that way. in fact I wouldnt mind guaranteed peace insurance if such a thing existed, peacefully.  just a cg here but always on my mind, more so than when it was illegal. I'd pay a few bones monthly to rid myself of that stress.

Edited by grassmatch
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I agree that many dispensaries are just trying to make money, but so are many caregivers.

 

I knew of a caregiver that thought they would be able to live off growing for a few patients and themselves. Yes… 100% pay off all bills, growing expenses, smoke a bunch of free weed and whatever else they wanted to buy off the backs of these sick individuals. Of course, this wasn’t made clear to the patients before hand. After registering, the caregiver wasn’t able to make enough off typical caregiver/patient prices to pay bills; especially for the horrible quality, so they ended up selling all of it to others who would be willing to pay premium price and without warning. After repeatedly lying about saving meds and killing around half the crops, the patients were forced to turn to dispensaries.

 

Hearing experiences like these are perhaps why I argue against stereotyping all dispensaries as evil and all caregivers as good. The last dispensary I was visiting had near-top shelf bud for $35-$40 an 8th during their daily happy hour specials and always hooked it up by another 0.2-0.3g. They were definitely making very little if any profit during these times and it greatly helped those who couldn’t easily afford it. Now that they are closing I recently tried another top rated dispensary, but their quality and pricing is nowhere near what the last offered ($50-$60 for comparable 8th). Maybe I'll be looking for a CG myself if this keeps up.

Edited by Alphabob
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I dont see why so many people on here are anti dispensary. Since when is making money by selling a product some kind of moral crime? Its america. Its capitalism.

Dispensarys do charge high prices, but they also have all the regular expenses of any other business, plus legal fees and jail time in some cases. So yeah that they charge high is fine because they risk a lot! Plus nobody is forcing anyone to go to a dispensary. If they dont like the price go somewhere else.

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Because there’s a group in the dispensary industry that wants to make homegrows illegal for their own monopoly (LEO is pushing for this also), and because they are illegal depending on the details of their business including location. Anyone who provides MMJ to a registered patient must at least be a registered caregiver; details beyond that are arguable and often misapplied by prosecutors/LEO to raid.

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if only the few dispensaries supporting the outlawing of home growing could be identified right here, right now, we could all make informed choices. I bet some of them could give two buds about the big picture. Maybe some even openly support home growing caregivers and work to protect those rights. Identifying those would be special.

 

Now, If I had to guess which ones were AGAINST home growing......I'd look at the ones that have stood the test of time as likely to be the ones closest in line with what leo wants, in part is to work AGAINST home growing.

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Yea it would be difficult to see what side each dispensary is on. Almost any dispensary is getting its supply from caregivers so it’s kind of weird that they would go against their own suppliers and want to raise cost. I feel like it’s mostly outsiders and LEO who are pushing to outlaw homegrows but who knows.

 

They are raiding for a bunch of reasons though not just P2P, many issues have already been resolved in CoA and MSC but they just don’t care. The main claims I’ve read are,

 

- C2P non-connected
- Sales
- Edibles/Extracts
- P2P

 

LEO is wrong on at least two of those issues (sales and extracts/edibles made from flower/leaves only). I don’t think P2P has any ground to stand on after the bogus MSC ruling, although the prosecutors acknowledge the parts they want and ignore those that go against their agendas.

Edited by Alphabob
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Something needs to be done in this state regarding the shops and patient 2 patient transfers its conflicting to say let the dispensary's provide for people not connected via the state yet charge individuals  that provide to other cardholders not in their group of 5 with delivery felonies .

This is how I feel. Pt to Pt or CG were always meant to be legal. Dispensary' were never meant to be legal OR necessary. Now we have neither. 

Edited by Greg Rx
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This is how I feel. Pt to Pt or CG were always meant to be legal. Dispensary' were never meant to be legal OR necessary. Now we have neither. 

So how do you stop a dispensary when the people who work there are caregivers and patients?  Or do you just "want" it to be exclusive?

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