medical marijuana.jpg

A marijuana leaf

(MLive file photo)

OSHTEMO TOWNSHIP, MI — Oshtemo Township is considering a ban on medical marijuana centers from the township in response to a proposed state statute authorizing such facilities.

The township board unanimously accepted a new ordinance banning the facilities on first reading at its Tuesday meeting and will consider it again for second reading and adoption at its Jan. 13 meeting.

Township Attorney Jim Porter said the proposed state statute authorizes and approves medical marijuana provisioning centers or safety compliance facilities but allows municipalities to ban the centers within their borders.

"The legislature may never pass this, but then again, it could be on our desk as early as January," Porter said. "We don't know."

Porter said based on previous board actions to eliminate medical marijuana dispensaries in the township, he brought the ordinance to the board in advance of state legislative action.

"We had a facility located here before the law was made clear," Porter said. "It created a bit of a controversy in that it wasn't legal or illegal, it sort of fell between the cracks."

Porter said the township's location off major highways and its high traffic areas would make it a prime candidate for multiple facilities.

Based on the board's approval of Ordinance 521, which limits caregivers growing medical marijuana for anyone other than themselves to licensed, inspected home occupations in rural residential zones, and the township board's previous acceptance of findings that such facilities have negative secondary effects, Porter drafted the new ordinance to prohibit medical marijuana provisioning centers or safety compliance facilities as well as the transportation of medical marijuana products in and out of the township to and from such facilities.

The new ordinance cites negative secondary effects including additional burden on law enforcement in distinguishing between lawful and unlawful operations, increased incidents of crime and undermining of a private and confidential patient/caregiver relationship.

Violation of the ordinance would be a municipal civil infraction with a civil fine of $500 per violation.

Trustees Nancy Carr and Lee Larson and Clerk Deb Everett expressed support for the ban.

"[The centers are] a retail environment that I don't think any of these laws intended in Michigan right now," Larson said.

"We have [growers] somewhere in the township and we're not getting complaints, so I think what we have is working," Everett said.

Trustee Dusty Farmer said she could accept the ordinance on first reading but she is not prepared at this time to support it beyond that. She said every precinct in Oshtemo voted yes on the state medical marijuana act and she did not feel she could assume they regarded intending centers.

"I'm not sure I'm in favor of a complete ban," Farmer said. "I wonder what other options the township has to regulate these."

Porter told the board if it opts out now, it could choose to rescind or modify the ordinance in the future if it decided it preferred to regulate centers rather than banning.