john martin
- 521
- 93
Wasn't there a prior ruling which basically said:
1. If MMP users caught in school zone, if they show they were only in school zone for purpose of getting from point A to point B and school zone was in the way of least resistance, they are innocent.
2. If MMP users caught in school zone, for purpose of doing something non-related to the school, for example buying a burger across the street from the school, they are innocent.
?
lol it looks kinda like a girl to me :eek:
Police raid two medical marijuana shops; owners worry about patients
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Lisa Yanick-Jonaitis -- The Morning Sun Empty jars line a shelf in Tao Holistic Care, a medical marijuana dispensary in Gratiot County's Seville Twp. that was raided by drug enforcement officers on Wenesday.
For the better part of this year, two medical marijuana dispensaries operated quietly and without much incident within a few miles of each other on M-46 in Seville Township, west of Alma.
Sometime between 3 p.m. and 4 p.m. Wednesday that changed.
At around the same time both Tao Holistic Care and The Maplery were raided by the Mid-Michigan Area Group Narcotics Enforcement Team, with assistance from the Gratiot County Sheriff’s Department and the State Police.
Both owners said they were given the same justification for the raid: an undercover informant who had a valid medical marijuana card but was not registered as a patient with that specific dispensary’s caregiver was able to purchase marijuana three time at each business.
Lt. Doug Rogers of MAGNET confirmed that search warrants were executed at each business, that items were seized and that no arrests were made yet, however because the investigation is still on-going, he couldn’t provide much more detail.
“They are being investigated for criminal activity and we will turn our findings over to the prosecutor eventually,” Rogers said.
He also said that each business had been under investigation for “a couple of weeks.”
Tao Holistic Care owner Troy Bracke said he knew he was operating in a “legal gray area” by selling marijuana to registered card holders who were not registered as his patient. He said he and his wife opened the business to help people however, and the process of finding a caregiver to supply medicinal marijuana can be long and tedious under Michigan’s guidelines.
“Technically, it could take weeks for a person to be officially registered as someone’s caregiver,” he said. “Or if a new cardholder wants to grow their own, that could take 16 weeks or longer to get medicine in that person’s hands.”
Bracke and his wife, self-proclaimed conservatives and both retired United States Air Force members, began exploring medical marijuana as a business opportunity when their son, diagnosed with ADHD, developed an eating disorder they said is caused by prescription medication.
“Marijuana helped him with his ADHD, it helped with his focus, and it helped him eat,” Bracke said.
They said they set out to create a dispensary that “sets an example of a professional operation to prove it can be safe,” Bracke said. “We’re entrepreneurs.”
Tao Holistic Care is clean, open and airy; the waiting room has wood floors and artistic photography on the walls, a place where yoga classes are sometimes held. A person can smell marijuana, but faintly.
“The smell actually makes my wife sick, so we use air filters,” Bracke said.
On Thursday afternoon, as Bracke and his wife sat in their store and fielded calls and visits from patients looking to buy marijuana, Bracke got emotional.
“I want to be able to help, and now I can’t,” He said. “We have six to 10 patients who have cancer. This is their medicine. Now where will they get it?”
Bracke sells Rick Simpson Oil, a marijuana product that is gaining notoriety as an alternative medicine that proponents say has cured cancer. He said his patients who are using RSO for treatment will have a hard time finding it elsewhere.
At both businesses, police seized all marijuana products, including plants, rendering both operations essentially closed, although as of Thursday afternoon, neither had received any notice to cease and desist.
Police also took surveillance and recording equipment, patient records, receipts, cash and other items from each business.
Both Bracke and The Maplery owner Paul Eldridge said the raids took about four hours, and that officers were exceedingly professional.
Eldridge, a fourth-generation lifelong Gratiot County resident who grew up in St. Louis, said his dispensary is a family business, and he’s a family man.
“I’m local. I believe I did everything on the up-and-up. We’re out in the country, we asked Seville Township if we could be here. I was shocked by the police,” Eldridge said.
Eldridge said he has patients sign a contract, which in part states that he is considered their caregiver temporarily during the transaction.
“I 100 percent believed that was legitimate,” Eldridge said.
Eldridge also got upset talking about his patients.
“There are people who thank us every time they come here, who will have to go to Lansing now, and maybe they can’t afford to do that. We have cancer patients, veterans who have PTSD, people with chronic pain or who are missing limbs... this is their medicine,” he said.
While they wait to find out if charges will be filed or if they will face arrest, Eldridge and Bracke both expressed a desire to find a proactive solution.
“I want to know exactly what Gratiot County wants me to do, and I will work with that,” Eldridge said.
Bracke said he’s never wanted to be an activist.
“But we will be advocates for people who are suffering,” he said
We can only hope the A-Holes in Lansing get them bills passed !!This sucks!
We need Definite guidelines for operation of dispensaries.
To many gray areas.
My biggest fear ^^^ garage fire :eek:
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