NORML Blog » Blog Archive » Lying In Michigan: The Death Throes Of A Doomed Policy?
Paul Armentano at the NORML Blog posted this insane bit of Reefer Madness from the opponents of Michigan’s Proposal 1 allowing medicinal use of cannabis in the state:
Watch out Michigan! If you pass a medical marijuana, you’ll have pot shops next to your schools, just like California!
Except that Michigan’s law is nothing like California’s. It’s far stricter, requiring a doctor to certify a patient against a list of specified disabling conditions, not like California’s “any condition a doctor feels marijuana will help” clause. It limits patients to only 2½ ounces, is run by the state health agency, and requires an ID card system, unlike California’s varying medicine limits and voluntary, county-based ID card system. Most notably, Michigan would not allow the creation of dispensaries, just like every other medical marijuana state except California. So Michigan Proposal 1 is nothing like California’s Prop 215, except that they both prevent police from arresting seriously ill people for using cannabis.
And to give California her due, dispensaries are nothing like this ad suggests. Many counties don’t even have them and the counties that do impose strict limits on them, like only allowing three in the county and only allowing them in very restricted zoning areas. You’re more likely to find a liquor store close to your kid’s school in California than a medical marijuana dispensary.
