Making an example – Detroit Dispensary Raid
A blog article from the Metro Times by Larry Gabriel features a quote by Attorney Michael Kormorn.
Some excerpts from the article…
Last week the Detroit Medz shop on Detroit’s west side was raided for “selling marijuana outside the provisions of the state medical marijuana act,” says Sgt. Cassandra Lewis of the Detroit police media relations department. News reports said police found two guns, 4,100 grams (about 9 pounds) of marijuana, and arrested one person — although Lewis says two individuals were arrested that evening.
Lewis says that there were complaints from the community and that police previously had made undercover buys there, although it’s not clear if those undercover buys were made by people with state cards (or fake ones as has been done in the past) or by folks who just walked in with nothing to show.
So far no charges have been announced.
Tate has had Winfred Blackmon and his Metropolitan Detroit Community Action Coalition (MDCAC) riding his ass for several months regarding dispensaries in the city. I went to a couple of meetings early on and have been receiving Blackmon’s email alerts since then. Early on, it was obvious that MDCAC members didn’t want to see marijuana, medical or otherwise, in their neighborhoods. They have an old-school attitude. Early on, their complaints included the fact that most dispensary locations painted their storefronts green — as if that matters.
MDCAC has been pushing Tate, who represents District 1, to do something about what they call “illegal marijuana provision centers.” They’ve been riding city attorney Butch Hollowell too.
Truthfully, the city has been slow to address the issue. I’ve noticed a distinct tendency to avoid talking about marijuana by city officials while places such as Ann Arbor, Ypsilanti, Lincoln Park, and elsewhere have set up rules regarding dispensaries. Now those cities have not been going through their mayor being indicted and convicted, switching from an at-large to a district city council system, having an emergency manager, and a bankruptcy. However, it would be good from a number of viewpoints to set the rules about dispensaries.
That said, the MDCAC model is not a liberal one. Although over time, as they have come to accept that medical marijuana is not going away, they have lightened up some. Originally, they wanted only one dispensary per council district, which would mean only seven in the entire city. Their current proposal seeks to limit the number of dispensaries and limit their locations to industrial zones, mandates that they cannot be near a church, school, daycare or nursery, and proposes a number of inspections and permits before they can open.
This may be a case of the squeaky wheel getting the oil.
“They chose this very uncivilized manner to try to make an example of this one particular facility,” says Southfield-based attorney Michael Komorn, who heads the Michigan Medical Marijuana Association. “There is no rule prohibiting [a location near a school], no rule. … Maybe that’s something they should think about doing — regulate this in a way that satisfies the community.”
Maybe the Detroit Medz folks were selling to people who aren’t registered patients, but the rest of this seems to be pure political theater.
Larry Gabriel writes the Stir It Up and Higher Ground columns for the Detroit Metro Times.
