John Sinclair is back: A planned 'compassion center' could test medical pot law

[Bozita]

This lengthy piece from a quality journalist is time well spent.


http://www.metrotimes.com/news/story.asp?id=14915

3/24/2010
LAW

The big push
A planned 'compassion center' could test medical pot law

BY CURT GUYETTE

John Sinclair's long strange trip is taking another twist

Arrested in 1969 for giving two joints to an undercover narc, the poet, writer and political activist paid a heavy price for assuming a high profile in the counterculture of the 1960s. Sentenced to 10 years, he served 29 months in prison — attracting widespread attention and a slew of high-profile supporters, most famously the late John Lennon — before the Michigan Supreme Court heard his appeal and ruled the state's marijuana law was unconstitutional.

Now, at an age when most people have retired, he's about to join the vanguard again, preparing to help push the envelope of the state's medical marijuana law as he and a group of fellow travelers prepare to open what will be Detroit's first "compassion center."

Planned for the city's Eastern Market, the center is envisioned to become a place where patients can buy and consume pot in the company of others — without having to worry about getting hauled away in handcuffs.

"A place of fellowship," is how Sinclair describes the vision. "A place where people can get their medicine, relax, enjoy music. You have to have good music."

A few years ago, such a plan might have been written off as some stoner pipe dream. But when 63 percent of Michigan's voters passed the ballot measure known as Prop. 1 in 2008, the seeds of change were planted. The law allowed individuals with a doctor's recommendation to legally grow and buy pot. It also said that registered caregivers, who could have as many as five patients, could grow up to 12 plants for each patient.

Nearly a year after the state officially began accepting applications from prospective patients, businesses associated with medical marijuana are budding everywhere.

There are doctors' clinics that specialize in writing the recommendations necessary to obtain a patient card issued by the state's Department of Community Health. There are entrepreneurs who will teach neophytes how to successfully tend cannabis crops. Some carpenters and plumbers are beginning to specialize in building "grow rooms" and installing indoor irrigation systems, creating jobs for skilled tradesmen hard hit by the collapse of the housing market. Business is booming for garden shops that sell grow lights and other supplies indoor operations need. Publications like the Michigan Medical Marijuana Magazine — a glossy monthly packed with ads — are springing up. Flip through this or any recent issue of Metro Times and you'll see an abundance of the same type of ads.

In a state with a 15 percent unemployment rate, the law has been a financial blessing to many. From a business perspective, it represents a market that is expanding at a mind-boggling pace.

more, lots more...

[Vincardog]

1. This is as it should be

[Bozita]

2. kick for the evening crowd

[scarletwoman]

3. kick

[Buddyblazon]

4. It's done wonders for our state.

Give them a couple of years. Colorado is in the midst of the green rush and there are now more dispensaries than there are banks or Starbucks. It's the fastest growing (no pun intended) industry in our state.

[RainDog]

5. so, tell more about it

I think this is so interesting to watch. I'm not in a state that will be at the forefront of this b/c of competing interests in ag and pharma and whatever.

Do you get news stories about it all the time? Do you get disgruntled reactions from Colorado Springs, etc?

[fizzgig]

10. mmj is in the news a lot here in colorado right now

the state leg and city councils across the state are now trying to figure out how to regulate all the rapidly growing number dispensaries and there's a fair amount of 'won't someone think of the children' hysteria going on.

there's a lot of legal wrangling to go yet and i'm interested in seeing how it all plays out. there were some people in a small town not far from here who wanted to recall the mayor for his handling of dispensaries (i think they were pissed he didn't just outright ban them, but i can't remember for sure). i think a lot of interesting case law is going to be made here in the next six to 12 months.

[Hannah Bell]

6. It ain't fair, John Sinclair, In the stir for breathing air

Won't you care for John Sinclair?
In the stir for breathing air
Let him be, set him free
Let him be like you and me

If he'd been a soldier man
Shooting gooks in Vietnam
If he was the CIA
Selling dope and making hay
He'd be free, they'd let him be
Breathing air, like you and me

They gave him ten for two
What else can the judges do?
Gotta, gotta, gotta, gotta,
gotta, gotta, gotta, gotta,
gotta, gotta, gotta, gotta,
gotta, gotta, gotta set him free

[Hannah Bell]

7. white panthers

At the ragged end of the 1960s, perhaps no slogan was scrawled on more bathroom walls or carved into more classroom desks in southeastern Michigan than "Free John Sinclair!" It was a slogan that eventually pitted John Lennon against J. Edgar Hoover one early morning in December, 1971, at Crisler Arena...

As the Panthers' "Minister of Information," Sinclair was a busted sewer line of words that gushed into endless underground newspaper columns, street fliers and press releases. When a police investigator testified that the Panthers "were working towards obtaining control of young people 'for the primary purpose of causing revolution in this country,'" Sinclair was delighted to confirm the charge. His political program was never terribly specific, but it was loud, and it attracted the fascination of mainstream reporters. They dubbed Sinclair "king of the hippies" and telegraphed his message across the state, to the horror of adults and the appreciation of teenagers.

For over-the-top '60s craziness, nobody could beat John Sinclair. "We are free mother country madmen in charge of our own lives," said a typical Panther pronouncement, which pledged to reinforce Stokely Carmichael's "20 million arrogant black men" with "a generation of visionary maniac white dope fiend rock and roll freaks who are ready to get down and kick out the jams—ALL THE JAMS—break everything loose and free everybody from their real and imaginary prisons…" And so on.

Then, in July 1969, Sinclair was convicted of giving two marijuana joints to an undercover Detroit policeman. Robert Colombo, a tough Recorder's Court judge who was fed up with hippies, sentenced him to nine-and-a-half to ten years in prison. Off John went to the state penitentiary in Jackson. But his energy did not flag. From prison, he directed a remote-control propaganda blitz to reduce sentences for the possession of drugs, especially pot, and so to "Free John Sinclair!" Thus the graffiti.

michigantoday.umich.edu/2008/06/sinclair.php

[Bozita]

8. Good post, Hannah!

Thank you.

[mcbaranoff]

9. Americans in the Marijuana Underground

My husband, Harold Zvi Baranoff, P.O.W. marijuana prisoner Jesup GA Federal Prison Workcamp writes, "That is a FANTASTIC article about Michigan (John Sinclair, et. al.). It was very encouraging to read."
It is time to end the War on Marijuana. We are quite willing to "Turn our Turbans" and do our part to help reunite the United States of America. Please consider signing our petition to Obama that offers the following proposal in the name of the millions of Americans in the Marijuana Underground....
http://war.change.org/petitions/view/americans_in_the_marijuana_underground_policy_proposal