News Nuggets

MICHIGAN

Battle Creek club opts for new business model to avoid legal issues

If the state Supreme Court throws up a roadblock, drive around it. Attempting to work with a recent court ruling that has essentially outlawed storefronts, one Battle Creek compassion club is trying out a new business model that has been deemed to be legal and not violate the judicial decision, according to a recent report in the Battle Creek Enquirer. The set-up that Higher Expectations Medical Partnership (HEMP) has launched involves providing a safe, physical space where a caregiver and a patient can meet for the transfer of meds. No cannabis is stored on site. The model also allows patients to find new caregivers, if they so choose.

Under this model, a caregiver can be charged a one-time fee ($100) and a monthly fee ($100) to use the facility as a place of transfer. Patients do not pay any fees.

“Nobody wants to meet in parking lots,” HEMP owner Brock Korreck told the Enquirer.

In February, the Michigan Supreme Court ruled that patient-to-patient transfers of medical cannabis were illegal—hence the impetus for new legal ways to connect patients, caregivers and meds.

Cooper Township passed six-month moratorium on MMJ operations

Still waiting for more clarity from state officials, Cooper Township officials have continue to put the brakes on new providers of medical cannabis for the next six months, MLive reports. But one official says the moratorium extension, passed June 10, on storefronts is not an anti-patient move. “We really aren’t concerned with what people do on their own time if they have a card and approval from their doctor,” Cooper Township Supervisor Jeff Sorensen told MLive.

Township officials say they had been waiting for the state to weigh in on the legality of storefront providers of MMJ—in light of a recent state Supreme Court decision—but with no input, they opted to extend an existing ban on permits, licenses or approvals for MMJ cultivation, sale and storage within town limits. The six-month moratorium gives the township time to “monitor pending litigation and legislation that may affect the legality of medical marihuana.”

SAN DIEGO

Del Mar district officials provide input to San Diego’s proposed MMJ regulations

As San Diego continues to work on medical cannabis regulations, the Del Mar Union School District is seeking to submit its feedback to city officials regarding storefronts, the Carmel Valley News reports. In essence, district officials want to make sure that any prospective medical cannabis providers and storefronts do not establish themselves too close to school campuses.

Other community groups in places like Carmel Valley and Torrey Pines have also sought to ensure buffers between MMJ operations and “neighborhood community zones.” Several months ago, San Diego Bob Filner had proposed an ordinance that would have allowed storefronts in certain industrial zones such as Del Mar Heights Village (near Del Mar Hills School), Flower Hill Promenade and the site of the future Pacific Highlands Ranch Village Center, near Sycamore Ridge.

One school district trustee, Board President Scott Wooden, said he opposes storefronts around Carmel Valley and Del Mar retail centers but felt that they can be appropriately located in “heavy duty” commercial or industrial areas, Carmel Valley News reports.

It is not known  when exactly San Diego city officials will revisit passing an MMJ ordinance.

No ordinance, but still hope for patient access to meds

In the wake of San Diego’s efforts to finalize a medical cannabis ordinance to meet the needs of its patients and constituents, providers of the healing plant continue to move forward with caregiving—and a patients’ advocacy group says that’s legit. While Mayor Bob Filner is pro-medical cannabis and called off any MMJ enforcement a few months ago, he recently said that, in the absence of a new ordinance, storefronts should wait before they open.

Nonetheless, an estimated 25 storefronts have opened in the city, including about 10 in Pacific Beach, Fox 5 News said. Eugene Davidovich, coordinator for the San Diego Chapter of Americans for Safe Access, characterized storefronts as “providing a service to needy patients at great personal risk to their businesses,” according to U-T San Diego.

WASHINGTON

Seattle committee approves indoor cultivation the size of football fields

A Seattle city committee has given a green light to indoor commercial cannabis grows that would allow up to 50,000 square feet—about the size of a football field—of crop cultivation in certain industrial areas, The Seattle Times reports. The proposals rules, however, would prohibit growing in areas that are closes to the Port of Seattle and maritime businesses. Such businesses comprise nearly half—46 percent—of Seattle’s industrial land. The North Seattle Industrial Association opposed the plan, but on business terms and not because of cannabis. Association president Eugene Wasserman told The Times that such grow operations will drive up property values and rents for existing businesses. “Our members are afraid of being priced out,” he told the newspaper. “We have nothing against marijuana.”

Councilmembers said they are allowing large grows because land for smaller operations is hard to find, and large grows will help bigger farms lower productions costs and prices.

Councilmembers Nick Licata, Sally Clark and Bruce Harrell voted in favor of large indoor cultivation. Councilmember Sally Bagshaw voted against it, but because she thought such cultivation should be limited to 10,000 square feet. Large grows would be prohibited, according to proposed city rules, in residential, historic and small neighborhood commercial areas.

SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA

California Supreme Court: Police need warrant to open cannabis-smelling mail

Even if a mailed package smells like there is cannabis inside of it, police and law enforcement officials must have a warrant to open it. That’s according to a June 27 ruling by the California Supreme Court, the Los Angeles Times reports, which rejected a prosecutor’s argument that opening a danky package in the mail is warranted. Police are generally entitled to seize evidence in “plain sight,” but the court rejected Santa Barbara County prosecutors’ “plain smell” argument.

Police had seized a FedEx package after a company employee reported smelling cannabis. The package contained 444 grams of cannabis.

“Because there was no justification for an immediate search of the package once it was seized, the police had no derivative authority to search the package later at the police station without a warrant,” according to Justice Gordon Liu’s ruling.

THE STATE

Seattle committee approves indoor cultivation the size of football fields

A Seattle city committee has given a green light to indoor commercial cannabis grows that would allow up to 50,000 square feet—about the size of a football field—of crop cultivation in certain industrial areas, The Seattle Times reports. The proposals rules, however, would prohibit growing in areas that are closest to the Port of Seattle and maritime businesses. Such businesses comprise nearly half—46 percent—of Seattle’s industrial land. The North Seattle Industrial Association opposed the plan, but on business terms and not because of cannabis. Association president Eugene Wasserman told The Times that such grow operations will drive up property values and rents for existing businesses. “Our members are afraid of being priced out,” he told the newspaper. “We have nothing against marijuana.”

Councilmembers said they are allowing large grows because land for smaller operations is hard to find, and large grows will help bigger farms lower productions costs and prices.

Councilmembers Nick Licata, Sally Clark and Bruce Harrell voted in favor of large indoor cultivation. Councilmember Sally Bagshaw voted against it, but because she thought such cultivation should be limited to 10,000 square feet. Large grows would be prohibited, according to proposed city rules, in residential, historic and small neighborhood commercial areas.

Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn, mayors: Back off, federal government!

Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn joined many other mayoral colleagues U.S. Conference of Mayors last month in urging the federal government to respect local cannabis laws. The conference passed a resolution saying “that federal laws, including the Controlled Substance Act, should be amended to explicitly allow states to set their own marijuana policies without federal interference; and that until such time as federal law is changed, The United States Conference of Mayors urges the President of the United States to reexamine the priorities of federal agencies to prevent the expenditure of resources on actions that undermine the duly enacted marijuana laws of states.” The resolution had 18 co-sponsors, including Oakland Mayor Jean Quan and San Diego Mayor Bob Filner.

THE NATION

ACLU: Cannabis-related arrests and enforcement is racially biased

Arresting people for having cannabis wastes billions in taxpayer money and discriminates against African Americans—even though blacks and whites use cannabis at roughly the same rate, according original research by the ACLU. More than half of all drug arrests in this country are related to cannabis, according to the group’s research. Of the 8.2 million arrests between 2001 and 2010, nearly 90 percent of them were for simply possession.

The research also indicates that, despite the roughly same rate of usage, blacks are nearly four times more likely than whites to be arrested for cannabis. In Iowa, Washington, D.C., Minnesota and Illinois, African Americans were 7.5 to 8.5 times more likely than whites to be arrested.

The ACLU estimates that about $3.6 billion was spent on enforcing cannabis laws.

THE WORLD

Former Mexican president Vicente Fox supports legalization, regulation

Mexico’s former president (and former Coca-Cola executive), Vicente Fox, publicly announced his support for legalizing and regulating cannabis, arguing that it would deal a blow to violent drug cartels by taking away their profits. The former head of state even suggested he would consider cultivating once the plant was legalized. “I am a farmer,” Fox told reporters at his Fox Center in central Mexico’s Guanajuato state. “Once marijuana is legitimate and legal, I can do it.”

Fox was president of Mexico from 2000 to 2006 for the conservative National Action Party. Roughly three years ago, he joined several other former Latin American leaders to advocate for cannabis decriminalization. “Marijuana with adequate controls and with legalization can perfectly well be an operating, legal industry [in Mexico] that would take millions of dollars away from the criminals,” Fox said.

France takes the first step in clearing the way for cannabis-based medicines

Vivae la France! The country that gave us the Statue of Liberty and saved our butts during the Revolutionary War has found its compassionate side. France recently modified its public health code to allow the use of cannabis-based medicines. Up until now, non-industrial uses of cannabis had been prohibited. However, cannabis-based medicines must still be approved by the country’s National Medical Safety Agency. The changes allow “the production, transport, export, possession, offering, acquisition or use of specialty pharmaceuticals that contains one of these (cannabis-derivative) substances.”

But even with these changes, observers and cannabis medicine proponents expect it will be some time before such medicines made their way into the hands of patients and the sick. “The law allows us above all to unblock the process of launching research into cannabinoids,” Philippe Gaertner, a spokesman for a French pharmacists union, told English-language French news site The Local. “I’m not sure we’ll have these medicines on the market quickly.”