Michigan just got A LOT more complicated for medical marijuana consumers who drive cars. Check out this new guideline for staying in compliance!
by Rick Thompson/December 22, 2016
LANSING- Yes, the issue of medical marijuana possession and driving is not so cut-and-dried any more. Neither is the issue of the legality of edibles, concentrates and liquid forms of cannabis! Here’s a guide to help you figure out how to stay legal.
- Consult a real attorney! I am not one. Protect yourself by getting all the details and all your intimate questions answered in a face-to-face session with the person who will go to court with you, if needed. Need to know a good one? Just search the Internet for news stories about criminal defense attorneys who are making new case law or defending patients like you.
- Keep your card current and keep it on your person at all times. An expired medical marijuana card does you no good during a roadside police encounter. Neither does a card that was left in your other pants or was lost three weeks ago. Help your attorney help you by giving them all the ammunition they need to balance the argument between your defense and the state’s prosecution.
- Know what you are allowed to have. 2.5 ounces of dried flower is still the benchmark for a patient, but you can now divide that 2.5 oz up among flower, solid, liquid and gaseous form (whatever that is). To figure out how much of each you are allowed to have at any one time we use an Equivalency Scale. For each ounce of flower you can have 16 ounces of solid medicine like lotions, brownies or other medible. Finally, a standard that makes sense! Instead of weighing the entire brownie and counting that against you in court, patients are only responsible for the cannabis content of the foodstuffs. If all a registered patient has is medibles or creams/lotions they can carry up to 40 ounces. Do you like those medicated teas and beverages? For each one ounce of flower you can substitute 36 ounces of liquid. If all they have is marijuana in liquid form, a single patient can carry 90 ounces total. If you happen to have a rescue inhaler or similar product that is filled with cannabis-medicated vapor, you are covered, too. Patients can possess 7 grams of medicated gas/vapor for every ounce they are allowed. That would allow a total of 17.5 grams of gaseous medicine, if that is all the patient was carrying at the time. Let’s be clear: it is NOT 2.5 oz of flower PLUS some edibles PLUS some juice. One patient card, 2.5 ounces in any combination. That’s still the same. What’s a liquid? What’s a solid? Where does RSO in a syringe fit in with this equation? These are good questions to ask an attorney!
- Label everything you are carrying, and only carry things in labeled containers. For a patient the new part of Section 4(b)(2) requires all marijuana-infused products to be carried in sealed and labeled package in your trunk (but see below). Those products include foods but also creams, lotions, oils, tinctures, raw cannabis juice and shatter/hash style extracts. The label has to have six things on it: the name of the patient possessing the package, the approximate weight of the medicine in ounces, the name of the company/caregiver who made it, the date it was created, the name of the caregiver who provided it, and the date on which it was given to the patient.
- Caregivers have different rules now. Registered caregivers must carry all the transported cannabis in a case (different from the patient requirements) and in the trunk, along with the delivery manifest (see below) and each package labeled as per the patient requirements mentioned above. The manifest is a list of what you are carrying, who it is going to, where it came from, and when you expect to deliver it. One manifest per patient and ONE PACKAGE PER PATIENT is the most secure way to transport. If police pull you over and you have 10 oz in a single bag, you could be guilty of a civil infraction ($250 fine), even if you could carry 12.5 oz. overall. Everything should be divided up and labeled properly or else your allowable amount may not be allowable any more. Sound like a program that is easy to accidentally violate? Sure is. Sound like a way to take innocent sick people and turn them into ATM machines? You bet. BE CAREFUL. The manifest must include date and time of departure, date and time of anticipated arrival, a few more things and all the information required on the individual packaging labels.
- Carry your medical marijuana patient stash in your purse or pocket now. Thank you, Joshua Covert and the Nichols Law Firm! Per a published Court of Appeals ruling from December 20 (People v Latz) patients who are carrying their medical marijuana card and have less than the 2.5 ounces they are allowed to possess (in any combination) can have it in the front seat or the back seat without violating the law. This does not necessarily apply to caregivers. Be warned: it takes some police officers a long time for this information to trickle down, so be prepared to politely deal with any law enforcement encounters from a cooperative framework. Being right does not entitle you to be an ass. Also, if you have children in the car, putting all cannabis in the trunk is advisable, just to prevent any Child Protective Services involvement in your life. This Appeals Court ruling can be appealed by Michigan’s Attorney General, but unless the state Supreme Court overturns it this rule is THE LAW now!
- NO BUTANE EXTRACTIONS. This extraction method is heavily restricted under the new laws. It seems horribly unfair to deny protection to patients who have used this extraction method as part of their medical treatment for a long time, but there is a lot about these new laws that seems horribly unfair to patients, like taxing cannabis medicines and excluding caregivers from cannabis industry jobs.
- Transfers between patients are even more illegal than they were before. Sharing a joint between carded patients, always sort of a grey area, is now expressly mentioned as forbidden in law. Same for all forms of cannabis; per the state’s new law, if it passes from one patient’s hand to another person, it is a violation of the MMMA.
LINKS
A guide to these new laws was created by two Michigan medical marijuana advocates. It is an excellent examination of the rules and offers more detail about how to remain in compliance and products that will satisfy the new laws. Please, give it a read and then, tell those guy thank you.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B_aIk-TUh8sEWHY0N0hWMHVkaU0/view
A printable caregiver delivery manifest is available at the following link:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B_aIk-TUh8sETmdRbVl2SkZYTjg/view
The official language of all the bills which became effective on December 20, 2016:
Public Act 281, formerly House Bill 4209
Public Act 282, formerly House Bill 4827
Public Act 283, formerly House Bill 4210
The new court decision in the People v Latz case can be found HERE.