New Age for Medical Marijuana

New medical marijuana rules are coming, but for some patients in northern Michigan, it's not soon enough .

By Patrick Sullivan | Dec. 16, 2017

Michigan announced new emergency rules for medical marijuana facilities this month, and municipalities across the state are debating whether to opt in and permit provisioning centers or marijuana production.

But in northern Michigan, the supply of medical marijuana for many card-bearing patients has all but dried up since police raids Oct. 4 at eight dispensaries across Grand Traverse County. Following crackdowns elsewhere across northern Michigan, those raids shuttered the only remaining dispensaries north of Lansing or Flint.

“I’ve literally had 10 patients in front of me in the last week just sobbing. They are in tears,” said Misty Cassell, clinical director at Chronic Certification Center, a medical marijuana certifier in Traverse City. “They have no access at all whatsoever, unless it’s through the private caregiver system.”

 

DAYS OF UNCERTAINTY
The new rules represent an attempt by legislators and regulators to solve a shortcoming in the design of the 2008 Michigan Medical Marihuana Act that prohibited licensed caregivers from serving more than five patients, a restriction that rendered medical marijuana business models unworkable.

Cassell said she likes the new emergency rules, which are expected to be replaced with permanent rules in six months. The state Licensing and Regulatory Agency rolled out the emergency rules ahead of the new medical marijuana law taking effect Dec. 15 in order to limit interruption of medical marijuana supply.

Cassel said she doesn’t understand why dispensaries in Grand Traverse County were shut down months before facilities operating under the new rules could open.

“I think the emergency rules are great. I would think that there would be something they could do that would get these facilities up and running quicker,” Cassell said.

Cassell said she’s seen a steep plunge in applicants for medical marijuana cards since the raids in October.

“A lot of people are saying, ‘Well, why should I renew my card if I don’t have access to the medication here in northern Michigan?’” she said. “Basically, we’re waiting for Traverse City to opt in, because that’s something they have to do. I’m not holding my breath waiting for that to happen.”

Traverse City Mayor Jim Caruthers said the city has been waiting to see the emergency rules before taking action and now should move forward to opt in and create zoning for medical marijuana.

“This is what the citizens of our state said that they wanted, and I think we’ve got to craft something that makes sure it’s available to them,” he said.

People familiar with the medical marijuana industry across northern Michigan say it could be April at the earliest before medical marijuana is available to patients from provisioning centers operating under the new regulations.

LOBBYING TOWNSHIP BOARDS
Steve Ezell ran Interlochen Alternative Health before it was shut down in the October raids. Prior to that, he said he was in business for over four years, he got along with his neighbors and his landlord, and never heard a complaint about his business.

“All of a sudden, kaboom, everything was shut down,” he said.

Ezell said former patients frequently leave messages at his shuttered office asking where they can turn now for medical marijuana. He tells than Lansing or Ann Arbor.

Ezell said he doesn’t understand why officials in northern Michigan have shut down the supply of medical marijuana entirely.

“I don’t understand why. It’s ‘Michigan’ medical marijuana,” he said. “Why is it enforced differently across the state?”

He said he is hoping to get back into business as soon as possible with a license under the new rules. In order for that to happen, he’s got to get the state to approve his license, and he’s got to convince Green Lake Township to opt in to permit marijuana provisioning centers.

Ezell and Cassell have appeared at Green Lake Township meetings and pleaded with trustees to opt in and allow provisioning centers. In November, they brought a dozen or so supporters to speak. Ezell said he wants to show officials that the people he serves are patients who are suffering, not stoners who want to get high.

Cassel said their efforts at least got the trustees to think twice about the issue.

“They tabled it,” she said. “They had intended on voting that night, and Green Lake Township intended on opting out, but after listening to these patients, they did table it.”

“NOT SELLING TO STONERS”
Ezell said he got into the medical marijuana business by accident. His wife had been diagnosed with cancer and had to undergo agonizing chemo treatments. Someone recommended medical marijuana, and once she tried it to counteract the negative effects of chemo, it was like she was a new person.

“I’m 68 years old. I’m not into selling marijuana to stoners with their hats turned sideways,” Ezell said. “These are legitimate patients. How are you going to say no to a veteran who’s served two or three tours in Iraq and is missing a limb?”

Ezell likes the new rules at first glance, but he believes Grand Traverse County should have allowed dispensaries to remain in business through December and been given a chance to transition into the new regulatory regime without interruption.

“I think it’s a step in the right direction, but unfortunately it’s not doing anything to help anyone in northern Michigan,” Ezell said.

Ezell said he believed he was previously in compliance with the murky medical marijuana law.

Previously, Ezell said he complied with the strict interpretation of the law laid out by court decisions that deemed registered caregivers could grow and sell marijuana for no more than five patients. He said his business acted as a cooperative that brought caregivers and patients together.

When the new law was passed in December 2016, he said he believed that was a signal from the legislature that gave tacit approval for dispensaries to sell marijuana to registered patients without the strict requirement that specific caregivers were tied to specific patients.

“At that point in time, we understood that we could start selling to anybody that had a valid medical marijuana card,” Ezell said.

CEASE AND DESIST
Grand Traverse County Prosecutor Robert Cooney said he disagrees that the passage of the medical marijuana facility law in 2016 signaled that dispensaries no longer had to follow the law limiting how many patients a caregiver could have.

“If that’s what the state position was, well, LARA came out with a policy statement telling all of these illegal dispensaries to shut down,” Cooney said. “It basically said, ‘You’re not going to get a license if you’re currently operating illegally.’”

In the Oct. 4 raids, each of the eight dispensary businesses was served a cease and desist order from Cooney. They were told that if they did not comply, he would file a civil action against the owners to have their business declared a nuisance.

Cooney also said he is still considering filing criminal charges stemming from the raids.

Cooney defended the timing of the raids, saying they occurred in October because that’s when the Traverse Narcotics Team brought him a case.

“I had never received a complaint for a dispensary until the fall,” Cooney said.

Cooney said he also disagrees that shutting down the dispensaries eliminated access to legal medical marijuana for cardholders in northern Michigan.

“There was a lawful way, and it was either to grow your own if you have a patient card, or to have a caregiver, and that’s all still true,” Cooney said. “It only disrupted the supply of illegally obtained marijuana.”

EVEN MORE TROUBLE IN GAYLORD
Ben Horner, director of the Flint-based Cannabis Stakeholders Group who has organized events to protest the medical marijuana crackdown that’s occurred in Gaylord over the last two years, likes the new regulations and hopes they bring clarity across the state.

“I think they’re great,” Horner said. “The state’s giving us a window of time to stay open and make sure patients have safe access to their medication.”

That applies to areas where medical marijuana businesses haven’t been shuttered by police and prosecutors, as has happened across northern Michigan, however.

“In northern Michigan, there are some issues going on in respect to the medical marijuana caregivers that thought they were in compliance with the law,” Horner said. “Traverse City had an ordinance; Gaylord had an ordinance. People thought that they were operating under the law.”

The facilities act passed last year will likely have its own problems and conflicts in the way it’s interpreted, but Horner said he hopes it gives some breathing room to patients and the people that provide them marijuana.

Chad Morrow operated Cloud 45, a dispensary in Gaylord that was shut down by police for good earlier this year along with other dispensaries across the city.

Morrow pleaded guilty to two felony marijuana delivery charges on Dec. 7.

He said he wanted to contest the charges, but his lawyer convinced him it would be too expensive and too risky.

Morrow said he basically pleaded guilty to doing what will be legal to do once the emergency rules take effect. He said the rules are called “emergency rules” because the state realized they needed to do something to prevent interrupting the supply of medical marijuana to patients.

“We recognized the emergency prior to the government, and then the government recognized it, and what they are proposing is exactly what we were doing,” Morrow said.

 

 

SIX MONTHS FROM HARVEST

Susan Leonard of Interlochen said she takes medical marijuana for glaucoma chronic pain from arthritis.
She’s had a card since 2009, and she said she’s suffering today because she’s lost her supply of medical marijuana after the Grand Traverse County raids.

“I feel that the state needs to refund all our money if they aren’t going to give us access to our medicine,” Leonard said. “They need to allow some shops to be open, because we have paid our fees to the state.”

She’s made some trips to Lansing, but she said it’s too time consuming and expensive. She’s also planted her own plants, but she said that’s not a short-term solution.

“It takes a long time for it to be ready; it takes about six months,” she said. “I kind of look at it like, would you take somebody’s blood pressure medicine away?”