Time to rally

The Michigan Court of Appeals last week delivered an opinion that rocked the state's medical marijuana community.

In a 3-0 ruling, the court decreed that patient-to-patient sales are illegal. Period.

That decision, for the time being at least, effectively annihilates the foundation used by many of the estimated 300 to 400 businesses that have been providing pot to registered patients, putting dispensary owners and their employees in immediate jeopardy.

As if to put an exclamation point on that message, two Ann Arbor dispensaries were raided the day after the appellate court issued its ruling in the case State of Michigan vs. Brandon McQueen and Matthew Taylor, d/b/a Compassionate Apothecary, LLC.

The victory cry from state Attorney General Bill Schuette was immediate and unrestrained.

"This ruling is a huge victory for public safety and Michigan communities struggling with an invasion of pot shops near their schools, homes and churches," the Republican AG said in a press release. "Today the court echoed the concerns of law enforcement, clarifying that the law is narrowly focused to help the seriously ill, not the creation of a marijuana free-for-all."

That's one way to look at it.

Another perspective is this: The appellate court ruling is both a significant setback for patients and a massive wake-up call to everyone who thought that the medical marijuana law overwhelmingly approved by voters in 2008 was the culmination of a struggle.

There are some who believe that the appellate court erred in its ruling, and we're told that an appeal is likely. 

We here at the Hits, however, have long thought that when the courts began clearing up what people on all sides of the issue have agreed are gray areas in the law, the result would be a clamping down on entities that, no matter how they try to frame the services provided, sell pot to patients.

Logic would dictate that if more than 62 percent of the people voting in an election say that they want qualified patients to have access to medicine recommended for them by a doctor, then they should be able to do so easily.

The problem is, the law they passed was deliberately vague, and the gray areas intentional. The most important thing was to get the thing passed, so that the door would open and people see that allowing medical marijuana would be an overall benefit — not just to patients, but the state as a whole.

In taking that approach, however, the law failed to explicitly provide patients with all the tools they need in order to have unfettered access to their medicine.

> Email Curt Guyette