On Thursday, the Michigan Supreme Court heard arguments in a case that will decide if all communities can restrict the use of medical marijuana. In 2008, Michigan voters approved the Michigan Medical Marijuana Act, but the city of Wyoming created a strict ordinance restricting the application of the law within its jurisdiction.
The ACLU of Michigan has challenged the ordinance.
While the city of Wyoming has packaged the restrictive ordinance as a zoning ordinance, the court asked Wyoming City Attorney Jack Sluiter, whether the results of the zoning ordinance was any different from that of a ban.
Sluiter told the media, “We are not trying to ban medical marijuana use by citizens, we are attempting to regulate the cultivation of the growing, distribution, of marijuana in the city of Wyoming.”
Presenting a new and innovative take on the issue, Sluiter portrayed a veritable slew of harms arising from the use of medical marijuana.
The Wyoming city attorney emphasized, “we’ve had break-ins, home invasions, theft involving medical marijuana …”
Highlighting another serious consequence of medical marijuana Sluiter said, “We’ve had fires involving medical marijuana because people are using grow lights and other things that are catching electrical systems and properties.”
However, the ACLU Michigan attorney Daniel Korobkin said, “They’re trying to nullify the Medical Marijuana Act within their city, and if they succeed there will be lots of cities that will try to do that but that’s for the same reason the people of Michigan had to go to the polls.”
However, Korobkin admitted that the court was clear that state and local authorities and state authorities have the power to take measures for safeguarding risks to public.
What remains to be seen is whether the city of Wyoming is successful in establishing that use of medical marijuana constitutes a public risk and to which extent.
Image source: wikimedia commons