Getting organized

It was a display of the worst behavior — publicly taunting a 7-year-old girl in the late stages of Huntington's disease on a Facebook page. However, in the wake of that atrocious act by a neighbor, the outpouring of support for Kathleen Edwards, the young Downriver girl, was an equally heartening outpouring of the best of human kindness.

Kathleen was showered with donations from around the world, a trip to an Ann Arbor toy store, and a couple of thousand people attended an Oct. 23 rally in her support at Trenton's Elizabeth Park. Among Kathleen's gifts there was a $350 gift card and a five-day trip to Kalahari Resorts in Sandusky, Ohio, donated by the Michigan Association of Compassion Centers.

"The public needs to know who we are," says Ryan Baser of the Capital City Caregivers, a medical marijuana compassion club in Lansing. "We want to show everyone that we're here to support the patients and the community. We're doing food drives in Lansing, Ypsilanti, Port Huron and Detroit. We're starting a coat drive for Thanksgiving and Christmas. In Lansing, there's a local toys program where a police officer takes kids shopping that we're participating in."

It's the kind of civic involvement you hear about from local business associations around this time of year. Except the MACC is an unknown entity, and their business is, shall we say, controversial. Some observers might look at their charitable activities with a jaundiced eye. They might say that it's a public show that covers up their shady activities. It takes some getting used to. But MACC members seem to be trying to maintain their business openly and legally under intense scrutiny from local governments and law enforcement.

The MACC was organized in the wake of the August busts of two Oakland County "compassion clubs" that authorities alleged were illegal marijuana dispensaries. There was obvious concern at other places that were involved in marijuana exchanges that they might be next.

"We saw the horrible way some people are being treated, how patients and caregivers were violated," says Jamie Lowell of the Third Coast Caregivers in Ypsilanti. "We need to protect our collective membership. There was a void in community where someone needed to step up and get rallies organized, find legal help for those who need it, help out on political campaigns, and promote good neighbor policies and attitudes."

There are 10 compassion clubs in the MACC, and they're said to represent a combined 6,000 patients mostly in southeast Michigan. The member organizations pay a $1,000 initiation fee plus $300 a month. They meet every two weeks and are in daily contact through e-mail. Like other business associations, they set standards among their membership. When a compassion club wants to join, they talk to them about staying within the law.

"We've started working to set a standard for the rest of the state in how to operate the correct legal way — how to do business, how to treat patients right, how to do security, how to work with local municipalities instead of against them," says Baser. "Our main focus is protecting our patients. Anytime there's a case and something going on that's not fair, we'd like to send a lawyer, legal representation, so they are not railroaded. Most of these people didn't do anything wrong in the first place."

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