The Collegian

Issue date: 2/5/09 Section: News

Media Credit: Cody Ewers Hillsdale residents can soon grow marijuana-with a permit.

Eligible Hillsdale residents will soon be able to get permits for growing and smoking marijuana in their homes to alleviate medical problems, based on a statewide proposal that passed in November.

But state authorities won't enact the proposal until they settle a debate over its language. Since it prohibits the use of marijuana in public, lobbyists from the Marijuana Policy Project foundation say it also infringes on citizens' rights to use it in their homes.

"That means it forbids people to smoke in their own living room with the curtains open or in their backyard behind their 80-foot privacy fence, as long as their neighbor has a two-story house," said Bruce Mirken, director of communications for the MPP.

The proposal says authorities must enact it by early March, 120 days after the date of its passage.

Michigan voters passed the proposal by a margin of 63 percent to 37 percent - thereby handing marijuana 130,000 more votes than they gave President Barack Obama.

In Hillsdale County, the ballot measure passed by 53 percent. The greatest percentage for the proposal, however, was in Washtenaw County, home of the infamous "Hash Bash" since 1971, and Ann Arbor, a city with a reputation similar to Boulder, Colo.

Most major newspapers in Michigan supported Proposal 1, including the Detroit Free Press, Detroit News, Jackson Citizen Patriot, Lansing State Journal, Battle Creek Enquirer, Michigan Chronicle and Detroit Metro Times.

Rallying around almost half a million signatures compiled by the Michigan Coalition for Compassionate Care, these papers produced editorials endorsing the coalition's claim that marijuana is a legitimate medicinal tool, and one that will do little to affect the amount of already-rampant recreational use.

Michigan is the 13th state to legalize medicinal marijuana, joining the ranks of Alaska, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Maine, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Vermont, Rhode Island and Washington. Out of the 14 proposed decriminalization laws put to vote, all have passed save South Dakota - striking down the legislation by a narrow 48 percent.

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