[420 Girl]

Saginaw, Michigan - Three people have signed up tonight to talk about Saginaw City Council’s likely decision to abandon a six-month medical marijuana freeze, City Clerk Diane Herman said.

The council gathers at 6:30 p.m. at 1315 S. Washington. The meetings are televised live and at 1 p.m. Tuesday on Charter Cable Channel 99.

Medical marijuana was a hot topic when the council last met three weeks ago. Thirty people — from as far away as Detroit and Grand Rapids — packed the council chambers to oppose a temporary moratorium on medical marijuana use, growth and distribution. The meeting featured one audience member's ouster because of unruliness.

The council delayed a decision to implement the freeze. Then, last week, Mayor Greg Branch admitted the effort was “taking more energy and causing a lot more angst than it’s worth.”

He said City Hall instead will skip a moratorium and move ahead on plans to adjust zoning language to fit state law legalizing the drug for medical purposes.

“A lot of that is because nobody outside of City Hall understands exactly what the moratorium was intended to do,” Branch said. “They’ve built it into this big giant monster that’s going to take away their rights under state law, but it’s just a little zoning law.”

A main complaint was that the freeze would make it illegal for a person to register as a medical marijuana patient during the six-month period.

Leaders said the intent was to stop business prospectors from capitalizing on Saginaw’s lack of medical marijuana zoning while planners rewrote the ordinance.

Branch said officials, including City Manager Darnell Earley, agreed planners can outpace business capitalists by finishing the new zoning language in four to six weeks rather than the six-month period the moratorium would have allowed.

The move seems to have appeased some medical marijuana advocates, including longtime council critic Greg Schmid.

Schmid said, regardless, rights groups such as the American Civil Liberties Union are keeping a close eye on Saginaw to see if officials attempt to make the city exempt from the November 2008 statewide vote legalizing medical marijuana.



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