Full Court Press

The Michigan Supreme Court steps up for patients’ legal rights

Patients: the Michigan Supreme Court has your back.

A recent ruling by this state’s highest court is a positive sign for medical cannabis patients concerned about overzealous law enforcement dropping the hammer with ruthless authority. The Michigan Supreme Court unanimously ruled that registered and unregistered patients and caregivers are entitled to a legal defense as long as they follow the provisions of the Michigan Medical Marihuana Act.

The ruling comes just in time for Larry King of Shiawassee County, who faced charges of cultivation despite the fact he was a licensed patient. Because he had not kept all 12 of his plants in a “locked, enclosed facility” (King had six plants in his home and six outside in a padlocked dog kennel, as opposed to a garage or green house), prosecutors said he could not use what is called an “affirmative defense” to avoid prosecution.

“The ruling is a positive one,” King’s attorney, Matthew R. Abel of Detroit-based Cannabis Counsel, tells CULTURE. “It’s a solid victory for patients throughout the state because the part about affirmative defense was not clear. It was intended to be a shield for the defendants, not a sword.”

Had it not been for this ruling, King would have been hit with criminal charges just as if he was a black-market grower and dealer. That all changed a few weeks ago after the court unanimously overturned the Michigan Court of Appeals, which had interpreted the MMMA narrowly. In addition, some judges had not allowed defendants who used medicinal cannabis to use an medical defense or even identify themselves as licensed patients—the scenario that King had been facing.

Now, with the state Supreme Court’s ruling in place, patients who fall within Section 8 of the MMMA have legal protection. Section 8 reads “a patient and a patient’s primary caregiver, if any, may assert the medical purpose for using marihuana as a defense to any prosecution involving marihuana, and this defense shall be presumed valid.”

Abel says the ruling will help protect medical cannabis patients from frivolous criminal charges by overreaching law enforcement.

“It rewrites two years of bad rulings in the Michigan Court of Appeals that [were] only hurting patients,” Abel says. “People were getting prosecuted for well-intentioned behavior. By [July 4] we are going to have 200,000 medical cannabis patients in the state, so the Michigan Supreme Court has to recognize the importance of this.”

The hope is also that the court’s ruling will have a chilling effect on police arresting patients, Abel suggests.

“It could have an effect on getting cops to back off,” he says. “They used to be confident about arresting patients and asking questions later. In the past there were about 20 court orders that said a patient couldn’t even mention medical cannabis because it wasn’t a valid defense. Now it’s going to be up to the jury.”

Ripple Effect

While the Michigan Supreme Court’s ruling is great news, MMJ attorney Matthew R. Abel says there is still work to be done to protect patients’ rights in other states that have MMJ laws on the books. “This is a Michigan Supreme Court ruling, so it only affects Michigan law,” he says. It may just be a matter of time before other courts catch up. “The ruling could have a ripple effect because of the fact [that] it clarifies a lot of language that refers to medical cannabis patients and the right to an affirmative defense,” he says. “For instance, the MMMA [that] was drafted [was based] on Rhode Island’s law, so attorneys there might now use the Michigan Supreme Court ruling for the benefit of their own legal arguments.”