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Detroit City Council Voted To Crack Down Dispensaries

Detroit City Council Voted To Crack Down Dispensaries

Politics

Detroit City Council Voted To Crack Down Dispensaries

In response to a proliferation of medical marijuana dispensaries throughout the city, Detroit City Council just voted to crack down on medical marijuana dispensaries.

The new rules are primarily zoning laws and have to do with where dispensaries will be allowed to open.

Under the new zoning restrictions—which will go into full effect March 2016—dispensaries will not be allowed to operate within 1,000 feet of another dispensary, a school, a church, a city park, a liquor store, or a bar.

As a result of the new rules, some dispensaries already in operation will be forced to close down.

The move to come up with new rules for controlling how cannabis dispensaries will function in Detroit came mostly in response to a general sense of confusion surrounding the legality of dispensaries in Michigan.

According to Fox 2 Detroit, “in Michigan medical marijuana dispensaries are still not permitted by state law, but some counties and cities have agreed to allow them.”

“Crossover 8 Mile from Detroit into neighboring Oakland County, though—Oakland does not allow any dispensaries.”

Given this confusion, many in the community began complaining about the sudden boom of dispensaries opening up throughout the city.

According to one news source, there are currently somewhere around 150 dispensaries in Detroit.

“We all feel like there’s proliferation. That’s no doubt,” Council member Janee Ayers told reporters. “But how do you properly regulate it without anything that came from the state or otherwise?”

“I think we had to strike a balance from those who didn’t want us to touch them at all,” added James Tate, another Detroit Council member.

Of course, not everyone is happy about the changes.

“Some medical marijuana patients who support dispensaries are skeptical about the re-zoning, saying they want to have safe access to them, because they rely on the drug for their medical condition,” news station WXYZ Detroit said.

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