Efforts to more closely regulate medicinal marijuana in Michigan have fired up the state’s pro-marijuana forces.
This week, many of them jammed into a room hosting the Senate Judiciary Committee, which Gongwer News reported is hearing testimony on a bill that would treat medical marijuana as a schedule 2 narcotic, limit a patient's ability to get the drug and require that it be purchased from a pharmacist with a physician's prescription.
Many medicinal marijuana advocates are concerned about the legislation because under a 2008 voter’s referendum, they have been allowed to grow plants on their own for medicinal use, as long as they get a state-issued card.
Greg Francisco, executive director of the Michigan Medical Marijuana
Association, said the bills would gut the new law.
"It would just be illegal to obtain it or to possess it which means it really wouldn't be legal at all," he said. "Please kill this package of bills now. They are a transparent attempt to thwart the will of the voters.”
However, Sen. Gerald Van Woerkom, R-Norton Shores
"I think the system is getting out of control to a certain extent," he said.
One consequence of the legislation is that it would likely make it harder for medicinal marijuana users to get marijuana. Most pharmacies would simply refuse to stock it – and those that do would face picketers.
And users say that growing the weed themselves is much cheaper than whatever pharmacists would likely charge – an amount almost certainly not covered on their BlueCross plan.
Attempts to kill medicinal marijuana legislation probably were inevitable. But given the high margins by which the voters approved the proposal, clearly the people already have spoken.
