Michigan Medical Marijuana: Supreme Court To Consider Legality Of Pot Dispensaries

The fate of Michigan medical marijuana dispensaries are on the line in a case that will be decided by the state's highest court. Michigan's Supreme Court is scheduled to hear arguments Thursday on the legality of the establishments, WWJ Newsradio reports.

State-licensed marijuana patients who do not grow their own pot go to the dispensaries to purchase the herb from other authorized growers.

The court will consider a decision made by the Michigan Court of Appeals last year, involving a Mt. Pleasant dispensary, that ruled commercial transfers between marijuana patients were illegal.

That verdict followed statements by Michigan's Attorney General Bill Schuette that the Michigan Medical Marihuana Act of 2008 did not allow for the existence of the dispensaries.

The Supreme Court case also involves Ryan Michael Bylsma, a Grand Rapids man who belongs to a growing cooperative that was charged with violating rules governing access to a growing facility and the permitted number of plants.

Tim Beck with the Coalition for a Safer Detroit, which is sponsoring a ballot proposal to decriminalize small amounts of pot in Detroit, said he was happy to hear the Supreme Court was considering the case.

“They do not take up every case, in fact they don’t take up a lot of cases at all," he told WWJ, "So when they do, it usually means something is wrong, it usually means that the lower court was in error."