[420 Girl]

Despite impassioned pleas by several defense attorneys, Waterford District Court Judge Richard Kuhn Jr. refused today to allow medical marijuana patients to use the drug while out on bond—a decision met with low hisses in a courtroom packed with 13 defendants, their lawyers and supporters today.

The 13 faced hearings following last week’s raids of a medical marijuana dispensary and a compassion club for patients in Waterford.

The defendants’ pre-trial conferences, scheduled for today, were postponed until Oct. 7 for most of them, and until later in October for a few, because prosecutors had not yet shared all of their information with defense attorneys. Another four people arrested in the raid have not yet been arraigned, and weren’t present today in court, officials said.

Before the hearings today, about 60 people – defendants, their lawyers, and supporters of medical marijuana – gathered in front of the courthouse to complain that their arrests were politically motivated by county authorities hostile to the Michigan Medical Marijuana Act.

About two dozen people in the crowd wore shirts that bore the wording, “This is Michigan, not a Cheech and Chong movie!”

That referred to the statement last week by Oakland County Sheriff Michael Bouchard, who in the course of criticizing medical marijuana establishments his officers raided in Waterford and Ferndale, said, “This is Michigan, this is not a Cheech and Chong movie.”

He meant the classic stoner movie duo.

Bouchard said his comment was meant to indicate that notwithstanding the state law allowing medical marijuana, his officers found widespread drug dealing and abuses at the locations – a contention vigorously disputed today by a dozen defense attorneys, including former Oakland County prosecutor and vehement drug foe David Gorcyca.

In Waterford, the restaurant where medical marijuana patients had been gathering each day at 4 p.m. no longer can host the gathering as a condition of the owners’ bond, attorneys Jeff Perlman and Michael Komorn said.

However, the eatery, Everbody’s Café on Airport Road in Waterford, is open for food from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. daily, said co-owner Candi Teichman.

She and her husband, William Teichman, also owned a dispensary nearby that sold medical marijuana to patients, and also has been shut down by authorities.



NewsHawk: MedicalNeed: 420 MAGAZINE
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