A lawsuit was filed against the state by a team of marijuana enthusiasts in Michigan to eliminate cannabis from the list of controlled substances in the state of Michigan. In 2008, the state of Michigan legalized cannabis for medical purposes, and the sales of legal recreational marijuana started in 2018, but cannabis is still considered as a Schedule 1 controlled substance according to the Michigan Public Health Code. Cannabis being recognized as a schedule 1 drug means that it has no medicinal value and a high probability of abuse.
According to one of the attorneys for the plaintiffs, Michael Komorn, cannabis should not remain as a scheduled drug.
Komorn said that cannabis is not a controlled substance and the notion that someone would be using an opioid and carrying it to a pharmacy since they had no meds is the case that would have to be in existence for cannabis to be considered as a scheduled drug. He also added that it’s intellectually dishonest.
The lawsuit was recently filed in the Michigan Court of Claims against Michigan Board of Pharmacy, and it’s the current chairperson Nichole Cover. The lawsuit affirms that with the state recognizing through legislation the medical potential of marijuana, the State Board of Pharmacy should remove marijuana from the list of the Scheduled substances. According to the lawsuit, the chairwomen, Nicole Cover should not be playing the role of a member of the Medical Marijuana Licensing Board and the chair of the Board of Pharmacy, which does not consider marijuana as a medicine.
According to media reports, the state spokeswoman Kelly Rossman-McKinney said that the Michigan Department of Attorney General is currently analyzing and arranging a response to the lawsuit.
The defendants in the lawsuit are NORML of Michigan, the Michigan Medical Marijuana Association, Dr. Christian Bogner, a scientist focusing on the effect of cannabis on autism, medical marijuana patient Josey Scoggin, pharmacist Paul Littler, and poet and activist John Sinclair.
Sinclair is a long-term cannabis activist. In 1967, he was arrested for carrying two joints of cannabis, and this resulted in an outcry that led to the annual Hash Bash in Ann Arbor. According to Sinclair’s statement at the recent Cannabis Counsel Office in Detroit, it is time to put an end to marijuana prosecution in Michigan.
Sinclair is a cannabis activist who was deprived of cannabis and was being maltreated because he smoked marijuana. Sinclair is bent on contributing to all efforts which will be made to remove the police from people who frequently use cannabis entirely. Sinclair wants to put efforts so that that the state should not be a burden to people using marijuana. In 1972, Sinclair’s conviction was overturned by the Michigan Supreme Court, mentioning in its decision that “not only because there is no rational basis for categorizing marijuana with the ‘hard narcotics’, but, also, that there is not even a rational basis for considering marijuana to be more dangerous drug than alcohol.”
