Marijuana dispensaries sprout despite uncertainties

LANSING – Steve Green, 37, is a medical marijuana patient with a particular distinction.

Green has visited about 30 dispensaries currently open in Lansing and often jokes it only takes “two jars of pot and a lease” to get a local business started.

“There are no guidelines; there’s no licensing procedure,” said Green, a Michigan medical marijuana cardholder since 2010. “It’s kind of great because it allows for true commerce to take place. But it also allows people from other areas to seek haven.”

Lansing doesn’t have a licensing process for medical marijuana dispensaries, despite City Council’s passage of an ordinance in 2011 regulating the businesses. At least 30 businesses applied for licenses that year, according to the City Clerk’s Office, but the Court of Appeals struck down dispensaries as a violation of state law.

Since dispensaries are technically illegal in Michigan, the City Attorney’s Office informed City Council in 2011 that any dispensaries open would operate at their own peril. Former City Attorney Brig Smith wrote in a letter after the Court of Appeals ruling that all Lansing dispensaries “refrain from engaging in any activities that do not comply” with the court ruling.

The Michigan Supreme Court ruled in 2013 that dispensaries can be shut down using the state’s public nuisance law, a ruling that Attorney General Bill Schuette praised, saying it virtually prohibited retail marijuana sales.

Yet dispensaries keep popping up in the Capital City, causing concern among some.

Carol Wood, an at-large council member for 15 years, put it this way: “It’s as if Lansing passed an ordinance that if you run a red light you’re getting a ticket. But, you’re sitting at the light with a police officer watching everyone run a red light — and nothing happens.”

Wood, chair of Lansing’s Public Safety Committee, helped craft the 2011 ordinance and said enforcement of dispensaries is out of City Council’s hands. Wood said she hasn’t heard from anyone at City Hall that the ordinance is unenforceable. If the ordinance is unenforceable, she’s willing to work on changes.

Owners of dispensaries could have the best intentions and serve only medical marijuana cardholders, but the uncertainty gives the perception Lansing doesn’t care if laws are broken, Wood said. The ordinance included zoning restrictions for dispensaries, licensing requirements and hours of operation.

Wood said city officials also are watching the Legislature, waiting to see if lawmakers will pass a bill clarifying the role of dispensaries.

Mayor Virg Bernero believes Lansing dispensaries are following the law by serving only medical marijuana cardholders. He added that most law enforcement agencies would like much of the law to be clarified. The Lansing Police Department tries to work with prosecutors to make sure dispensaries comply with Michigan’s Medical Marihuana Act.

“We’re trying to comply with the law,” Bernero said about dispensaries in an April interview, a few days before he spoke at Ann Arbor’s annual Hash Bash. “We continue to try and deal with the legal rubric that’s out there. I try to follow what’s out there (at state and federal levels), but right now it’s a bit of a hodgepodge.”

Council member A’Lynne Boles, representing the 3d Ward, wants to push for a more balanced approach to dispensaries that prohibits owners from saturating specific areas of the city with the businesses.

Boles, also a Public Safety Committee member, said the Police Department does the best it can to make sure dispensaries, their owners and customers don’t practice lawlessness. Local police, however, are challenged because of a gap between the city’s ordinance about dispensaries and state law, she said.

“They have to decipher what is illegal and what is legal,” Boles said.

Michigan’s Department of Licensing & Regulatory Affairs doesn’t track medical marijuana dispensaries, but confirmed this week there were 173,495 active registered medical marijuana patients in the state, and of those, 4,083 were in Ingham and Eaton counties.

LARA spokesman Michael Loepp said there were also 33,004 registered caregivers for the drug. A dispensary isn’t considered by the state a “registered caregiver.”

There were 1,963 caregivers in Ingham County and 864 in Eaton County who had cards issued during the 2014 fiscal year, Loepp said.

Meanwhile, a ballot initiative proposed in April could make recreational marijuana in Michigan legal. The initiative could put the issue in the hands of the state Legislature or send it to a statewide vote in November 2016 if the Legislature rejects or takes no action on the bill.

In Lansing, Bernero also has made it clear that low-level use of the drug is not a priority of the police department. Bernero said Lansing is going to “lead the way on marijuana sanity,” and the majority of residents appear open-minded.

In fact, residents passed a City Charter amendment in 2013 that says nothing in city ordinances shall apply to the use, possession or transfer of less than one ounce of marijuana on private property by a person at least 21 years old.

Residents who possess the drug, however, can still be charged with a crime under state or federal law.

Green, the medical marijuana patient, uses the drug to treat his epilepsy. He describes Lansing as a friendly buyer’s market because of its relaxed possession restrictions and abundance of dispensaries.

Green estimates the average price for marijuana at a Lansing dispensary is about $200 an ounce — much cheaper than practically anywhere else in the state, he said. The website PriceofWeed.com says the average national price of one ounce of “medium quality” marijuana ranges from $250 to more than $300.

“There’s definitely sense of peace and security within the city limits,” Green said. “That’s not the same feeling you’re getting in several other places in Michigan.”

A bill introduced in the state Legislature this year aims to address legal holes in state marijuana laws.

State Rep. Mike Callton, R-Nashville, is one of 21 sponsors of a bill that would create legal medical marijuana “provisioning centers” — more commonly referred to as dispensaries — and safety compliance facilities to test marijuana sold to ensure patients receive safe products.

Since caregivers aren’t allowed to pool marijuana for all their patients, and patients can’t get marijuana from other patients, the current law inadvertently created a delay, Callton said.

“It might take months before your plant is medicine,” he said. “And if you have cancer, you might be dead by then. If your child is having seizures, are you going to wait months while you child is having seizures?”

Callton said he’d prefer patients get the drug from pharmacies, but federal drug laws complicate that process. He added that medical marijuana can be safer than prescription pain killers, which have become a gateway to heroin use.

Eric Lacy is a reporter for the Lansing State Journal. Contact him at 517-377-1206 or elacy@lsj.com. Follow him on Twitter @EricLacy. Staff writer Matt Mencarini contributed to this report.