Hundreds rally for Michigan caregivers at the Capitol
The Livingston Daily reports that hundreds showed up at Wednesday’s rally against the proposed Michigan Cannabis Safety Act which would require caregivers to be licensed as specialty growers or cut their number of patients from five to one:
The rally also featured live music, free marijuana seeds, puffs of smoke pouring from the audience and signs reading “Big Pharma doesn’t know me, but my caregiver does” and “the system works fine.”
The rally was organized by Michigan Caregivers United, which says the new legislation jeopardizes the caregiver system. Since Michigan’s Medical Marijuana Act passed in 2008, caregivers have operated on a registry, serving a maximum of five patients with an allotment of 12 plants each.
The new bipartisan legislation, introduced Tuesday and potentially taking effect in March 2022, cuts caregiver patients to one each. Those wanting to serve more than one patient would need to get as licensed specialty medical growers, subjecting them to testing requirements reserved for big recreational companies.
The MCMA paid for a mobile billboard near Wednesday’s rally with the tagline “Cancer patients deserve to know what’s in their cannabis,” which was visible on Capitol Avenue throughout the day.
…But caregivers say mandated lab testing imposes unreasonable costs on small-scale operations and isn’t that necessary, anyway: Thousands of years of marijuana usage went unimpeded by laboratory testing, said Ryan Bringold, one of the rally’s organizers.
Bringold called the testing push a “boogeyman” meant to confuse the general public by putting forth a positive-sounding change that actually adds costly restrictions to caregivers.
photo credit: Protect caregiver rights by michiganorganicrub_
