More than 50 Michigan people from Metro Detroit turned out to Monday's meeting of the Birmingham Compassion Club at Baldwin Public Library to hear two attorneys address the Michigan Medical Marihuana Act (MMMA) and what it means for area patients and caregivers.
The talk is in light of the recent lawsuit brought against Birmingham, Bloomfield Hills and Livonia by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Michigan, on behalf of Birmingham residents Robert and Linda Lott. The Lotts, registered medical marijuana users, are bringing suit against a Birmingham ordinance that forbids the use of medical marijuana in the city.
Compassion Club co-director and Birmingham resident Chad Carr said the lawsuit has sparked a lot of interest in the issue of medical marijuana and said he hopes the discussion Monday night re-energizes the community to act.
“I would hope that the city would reconsider the ordinance,” Carr said.
Birmingham's ordinance No. 2026 prohibits any act illegal under federal law. The use of medical marijuana is illegal under the federal Controlled Substance Act, though the MMMA allows for and provides protection for the medical use of marijuana for registered patients and their caregivers.
Even more recently, the federal Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) served a subpoena to the Michigan Department of Community Health, demanding medical marijuana records for seven Michigan residents currently under investigation in Lansing.
Lansing attorney, Matt Newburg, was the primary speaker of the evening and discussed many of the gray areas in the MMMA, and what could and could not be deemed illegal by state law. His practice, Newburg Law PLLC, focuses on protecting the rights of users and caregivers under the MMMA.
Newburg discussed the practice of transferring marijuana between users and caregivers, and how much protection one would have should local law enforcement crack down. Transferring medical marijana between patients, Newburg said, is, in his opinion, legal under Michigan law. However, when caregivers begin exchanging marijuana, then things become tricky.
“There are rights that are inherent in the act and stepping on those rights would result in my opinion, in litigation and some of that has already come through with the ACLU and others,” Newburg said.
The Birmingham Compassion Club meets monthly and has around 50 members. The goal of the group is to bring together area medical marijuana caregivers and patients and educate them on their rights.
“We are also here so that we can discuss the political environment, discuss zoning and some of the challenges that we are going through because of the way that the law is written,” Carr said.
The focus on Monday night’s meeting was to inform not the Compassion Club, but also other curious community members. Those in attendance were from all over Metro Detroit, including Dearborn, Romeo and Farmington Hills. Many were current caregivers and patients; others were older Michigan businessmen and curious residents. Few young adults were in attendance.
Many audience members, although willing to give their opinions, did not want to go on record with their names. Attorney Daniel W. Grow from Saint Joseph, who also spoke at the meeting, said this was an understandable reaction.
“If you live in a community that has adopted an ordinance that says we’re going to follow federal law — period — and you’re in the paper and it lists your name as someone that is active, you’re going to be like my first client who spoke out at a meeting and all of a sudden gets evicted,” Grow said.
Grow went on to say that caregivers and patients should be very careful in the way they go about their medical routine, because there is an increasingly hostile attitude about the subject in many Michigan areas. Newburg listed areas in Michigan that he said were more open to MMMA — Oakland County was not one of them.
“I think the impression is that this whole thing is a ruse, just a trick to legalize marijuana — a trick for people who are already using marijuana to avoid prosecution," Grow said. "Those people have not spent time in the compassion community and they don’t know how it (has) changed people’s lives."
Patrick Hughes, a retired Clawson resident, was in attendance at the meeting. Hughes was willing to speak about the subject, saying he doesn't use medical marijuana however supports the use of the drug for medicinal purposes. Hughes started supporting the movement a year and a half ago when one of his good friends had cancer and was looking into using the substance to ease the pain.
“If you look around this room, there’s no one here that looks criminal. I’m not a criminal,” Hughes said. “I just want to make sure people who want marijuana because they are ill are able to use it.”
Hughes said the struggle over the MMMA stems from those who abuse the law, not those who use medical marijuana safely and legally.
“There is a certain value of people who are abusing this law, that are pot smokers and a certain value of people that are earning money through this," Hughes said. "I know that and they know that. I think it’s hurting the cause."
