Medical marijuana home delivery under consideration in Michigan
8/29/18
Medical marijuana patients might be able to soon have their medicine delivered… right to their homes under a proposed set of rules. Michigan officials are reviewing this with consideration.
Provisioning centers could send out an employee to deliver products to patients directly in a transaction as simple as ordering a pizza or Chinese food.
Marijuana home deliveries are allowed in Oregon, California and Nevada — though their programs are not all universal. Colorado, Washington, Alaska and Washington D.C. don’t allow for home delivery.
Under the proposed rules in Michigan, medical patients could order online and pay online for home deliveries.
Provisioning centers would be allowed to staff one person to make home deliveries, who could only deliver to three patients at a time, according to the proposed rules. The provisioning center would have to be able to track the delivery’s GPS location at all times during the delivery, and logs would have to be kept. Deliveries would only be allowed to the home address of the patient.
Medical patients living in a city or township that has banned medical marijuana businesses from operating could receive deliveries from provisioning centers, said David Harns, spokesman for the state’s Bureau of Medical Marijuana Regulation.
A hearing on the permanent rules is set for Sept. 17. The emergency rules and permanent rules are largely the same, save for the ability of provisioning centers to make deliveries, Copenhaver said.
Justin Pullin, Michigan Representative of Advanced Nutrients.
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During this February 20, 2013 hearing, Assistant Oakland County Prosecutor Beth Hand notified the court that her office is contemplating filing criminal charges against a medical doctor for his involvement in certifying two medical marijuana patients, Robert Redden and Torey Clark.
The protracted case against Redden and Clark was initially dismissed back on June 17, 2009, but the district court’s dismissal was appealed by the Oakland County’s Prosecutor’s Office and, since then, the case has dragged on between various appellate and trial courts.
Michael Komorn, a Michigan attorney who specializes in medical marijuana laws and is also the president of the Michigan Medical Marijuana Association, who filed a petition on behalf of a mother in southeastern Michigan, said no other state allows medical marijuana for severe autism.
This inspired several posts including MLive and the Washington Times. The post stated Michigan would become the first state to allow medical marijuana for children with severe autism if a senior official follows the recommendation made Friday by an advisory panel.
The state’s Medical Marijuana Review Panel voted 4-2 to recommend autism as a condition that qualifies for the drug.
Supporters say the extracted oil from marijuana when swallowed has been effective in controlling extreme physical behavior by kids with severe autism. It wouldn’t be smoked.
The panel was influenced by comments from some Detroit-area doctors, especially the head of pediatric neurology at Children’s Hospital of Michigan, and parents desperate for relief.
Now the recommendation go before Mike Zimmer, who is the director of the Department of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs. He has until late October to make a final decision.
Voting in favor of allowing it, Dr. David Crocker, a panel member noted that two doctors need to give their approval for a child to get a medical marijuana card from the state.
“We have a pretty good checks-and-balances system,” he said.
Michigan’s chief medical executive, Dr. Eden Wells, serves on the panel and voted no. She’s not convinced that there’s enough research on the topic, especially the long-term effects of marijuana on children.
The same panel rejected an autism petition in 2013 in what had been called a final decision. Smith’s petition was initially denied by LARA, but she successfully sued to force reconsideration.
The review panel voted 4-2 in favor of a petition submitted by Lisa Smith, a Michigan mother who has said cannabis oil has helped improve her severely autistic 6-year-old son’s behavior, sleep patterns and eating schedule.
Attorney Michael Komorn, who represents Smith, said her petition included hundreds of pages of research on autism and medical marijuana that was not included in the 2013 debate.
Smith’s son was certified to use medical marijuana because he also has epilepsy, which is already a treatable medical condition under the law.
“Otherwise, she would not have been able to get a recommendation from her doctor to see the benefits that it had on autism,” Komorn said. “She’s heroic in that she came forward and was able to tell her story so that this could happen.”
“These things are things we do not know until we have enough experience with these medications in a controlled trial. … I don’t think we have those checks and balances,” Wells said.
Experts writing in the February edition of the Journal of Developmental & Behavioral Pediatrics cautioned that marijuana for kids with severe autism might serve only as a “last-line therapy.”
Only one condition, post-traumatic stress disorder, has been added to those that qualify since Michigan voters approved marijuana for the side effects of cancer and a few other illnesses in 2008.
7/20/15 – Michigan law enforcement has thrown down the legal gauntlet against at least three medical cannabis dispensaries this month, including two in the Detroit metro area and one in a small town several hours northwest of the city.
In Detroit proper, the dispensary Detroit Medz was raided on July 14, with police seizing a gun and “drugs” and making an arrest, according to Mlive.com.
In Canton, a suburb west of Detroit, three residents who operate a dispensary that was raided in March were charged with felony crimes last week, including conspiracy to deliver marijuana.
In Shelby Township, far to the northwest of Detroit, local and federal law enforcement agents raided the dispensary Advance Medical Supply on July 10. Police conducted at least four searches and seized three vehicles and at least 10 pounds of cannabis.
The raids and criminal charges come just a few months after eight other dispensaries were raided in northern Michigan. They could be a response by the law enforcement community to a resurgence in the state’s MMJ industry.
Some of the raids may have been sparked by dispensaries not verifying the Michigan residency of customers, Mlive.com reported. But given the gray legal area that dispensaries operate in, how law enforcement deals with such businesses is often left to local discretion.
State police raided eight medical cannabis dispensaries in northern Michigan this week, serving 16 search warrants and seizing an untold number of cannabis plants.
Not a single arrest was made, however, even though law enforcement officials said the eight dispensaries are “suspected of selling marijuana illegally.” Police also seized processed marijuana products and “other evidence” from the homes and businesses that were searched.
The dispensaries were all in Otsego County, some in the town of Gaylord, which is more than three hours north of Detroit. Whether or not any criminal charges will be filed will be up to the county prosecutor.
The medical cannabis industry in Michigan has long been in limbo. The state’s Supreme Court ruled two years ago that dispensaries are illegal, but as many as 250 dispensaries still exist in a quasi-legal status, with some getting protection from local communities that approve of MMJ.
It remains to be seen if the eight dispensaries that were raided will reopen. In some other states that have experienced similar raids, targeted dispensaries actually were able to open their doors again.
