DETROIT – The Detroit News reported Tuesday that a district court judge has dropped all charges against the six people arrested in a million-dollar pot bust at a medical marijuana facility last May. Judge Kenneth King dismissed the charges against the defendants, noting that he was doing so in the "interest of fairness.”
The Detroit Police Department’s Gang Intelligence Unit conducted a raid at a medical marijuana facility where they confiscated one million dollars' worth of marijuana and 200 cannabis plants. The police were executing a search warrant and the prosecutors have claimed that the business did not have the proper license to cultivate medical marijuana and seized all of the facility's plants.
Michael Komorn debated the prosecutor's claim and said that facility does indeed have a temporary operation license granted by the City of Detroit. Komorn says that the temporary certification granted the medical marijuana warehouse permission to cultivate up to 1,500 cannabis plants while the state continues to implement the new regulations.
Medical marijuana was legalized in 2016, however, the state is only beginning to implement the system.
Medical Marijuana Facility Only Allowed to Sell, Not Grow
Kormorn retorted the claim by the prosecutors that the medical marijuana facility was only allowed to sell but not grow the medicine. The judge agreed and aptly said, "That’s absurd," while adding that it was semantics and questioned where else the facility is supposed to get it. "If they’ve been given permission to sell it, of course a medical marijuana caregivers center includes growing and cultivating marijuana," said the judge.
The dropped charges came just as the Detroit City Council approved an ordinance that focuses on limiting medical marijuana facilities on Tuesday. The new zoning ordinance will limit the city's marijuana facilities to 75 and allow the 60 dispensaries currently to stay open on a city and state temporary authorization. However, the new regulations will be designed to allow facilities to cultivate, dispense, process, and lab test medical marijuana.
While the police were raiding legal medical marijuana facilities in Detroit, Michigan Governor Rick Snyder ordered an investigation into Garden City officials citing bribery after three men bribed city officials with $15,000. The men pleaded guilty to bribing city officials for a medical marijuana cultivation license.
Judge King dropped the charges against the medical marijuana defendants just as the new ordinance was approved. The defendants each faced up to 15 years in prison for felony drug delivery and the manufacturing of marijuana.
