Clarifying Michigan's Medical Marihuana Act will not be easy.  The MMMA is an initiated law and not easily modified, amended or repealed.  The right of citizens to enact laws through initiative is a constitutional right.  Once enacted, an initiated law may be "amended or repealed" either by "a vote of the electors . . . or by three-fourths of the members elected to and serving in each house of the legislature."   Nonetheless, pending legislation pledges to "amend the Michigan Medical Marihuana Act."

Senate Bill 616 proposes to classify marihuana as a schedule 2 controlled substance, thereby allowing physicians to prescribe marihuana. Currently, marihuana is a scheduled 1 controlled substance, and due to such classification, prohibited from being prescribed.  Instead, under the Michigan Medical Marihuana Act, doctors provide "recommendations" for medical marihuana.  Whether marihuana remains a schedule 1 controlled substance is not the main concern of municipalities; rather, it's the commercial establishments popping up in virtually every community in the state.  Senate Bill 618 attempts to provide some reprieve for municipalities.

Senate Bill 618 proposes to amend the Public Health Code, not the Michigan Medical Marihuana Act, to prohibit "medical marihuana from being grown, sold, distributed, possessed, used, transported, or delivered unless it were grown and sold through a licensed medical marihuana growing facility."  The Bill also allows the State, through the Department of Community Health to "license up to ten (10) medical marihuana growing facilities in any one-year period...."   The sponsors of these bills may have good intentions; however, these bills are largely seen as political maneuvers and have little hope of becoming law.

Moreover, requiring the Department of Community Health to license and/or inspect facilities to cultivate or otherwise manufacture marihuana will further burden an already over-worked and under-staffed Department.  After the Michigan Medical Marihuana Act was passed, the Department anticipated they would receive approximately 7,000 applications the first year.  As of April 30, 2010, the Department received 27,883 original and renewal applications, issued 14,398 patient registrations and 6,274 caregiver registrations. As such, instead of processing applications and issuing cards within 20 days from the date the Department receives the application--as required under the Michigan Medical Marihuana Act--the Department is taking four months to process applications.

Addressing the issues presented by the Michigan Medical Marihuana Act in a timely manner requires municipalities and the elected officials running local governments to take action. Some municipalities have chosen to do nothing, others have outright banned the uses, while others are regulating Medical Marihuana businesses in commercial districts.  What will your municipality do?