Michigan Messenger’s Todd Heywood is attending the Medical Marijuana proposed rules hearing this morning in Lansing at the Michigan State Secondary Complex. About 200 people are in attendance.

Approximately forty-five minutes into the hearing, the state employees conducting the hearing directed persons offering testimony about rules not to provide any comments that might duplicate concerns expressed by other attendees; a ten-minute time limit per comment had been established as the meeting began. As a public hearing conducted by a state agency, the meeting should be conducted following Michigan’s Open Meetings Act; the time limit is normal during public hearings on controversial topics, but the direction limiting the content of comments appears to violate the Open Meetings Act.
 
Attorney Dennis Hayes, a representative of medical marijuana patients, was cut off while providing testimony, apparently because his comments duplicated concerns expressed by other attendees.

The two staff members from Michigan Department of Community Health’s Bureau of Health Professions hearing testimony this morning were not introduced nor were their names provided in the hearing notice.

During the hearing’s first hour, attendees expressed concerns about:

• creating inventory lists that could be used improperly by authorities;
• rules that were seen as too intrusive into personal lives of patients;
• poor coordination between state and federal laws could put patients at risk of prosecution under federal laws, threatening their Social Security payments since drug charges disqualify recipients for support.

A Michigan State trooper has been stationed in the hallway for the proceedings; Heywood observes that the crowd appears to be one of the tamest he’s seen.

Apparently cancer patients who need medical marijuana aren’t as violent as some might think.

We’ll have more on this hearing later today at Michigan Messenger.