Jim Fouts, Michigan’s most eccentric mayor, has proposed
a Warren city ordinance that protects against explosions, fires and pot odors
related to medical marijuana.
I’m not aware of any incendiary dangers associated with
growing pot but, just for good measure, Fouts wants to limit the growing and
cultivating of medical marijuana to the manufacturing areas of Warren that are
populated by old smokestack industries.
transport of medical marijuana in anything but sealed or locked cases. Any
infrared lighting used to grow pot that can be seen through windows by
neighbors between the hours of 11 p.m. and 7 a.m. would bring the wrath of the
Warren lawmen.
The city police would also be entrusted with enforcing
provisions in the ordinance that would prevent the release of any medical marijuana
odors emanating from dwellings.
from smoking pot in in any common areas of hotels, motels, apartment buildings
and condominiums, including parking lots and driveways. In addition, owners of
these multi-unit residential buildings could block the use of marijuana by
medical patients within the interior of their particular unit.
Tougher restrictions, including ventilation and exhaust
equipment and filtration machines, are also a part of this measure. It appears that only homeowners are spared the
wrath of Fouts — if they presumably keep their houses air tight to avoid any
pot pollution.
What’s more, government inspections and registration
requirements are part of this regimen proposed by the mayor, who is, by the
way, an overwhelming favorite to win re-election in three weeks.
law as the mayor seized the opportunity of proposing a far-reaching air-quality
ordinance to ban any type of stink associated with the breeding of pigs, goats,
sheep and who knows what else in this urbanized city of 130,000, the
third-largest municipality in the state.
The mayor’s ordinance calls for policing of odors linked to
animal husbandry, toilets, stagnant pools, garbage, dead animals, burning
rubber and, of course, people suffering from debilitating illness who achieve a
bit of pain relief from smoking marijuana.
efforts in the past to unsuccessfully prevent outdoor cigarette smoking within roughly
the length of a football field in relation to city buildings and parks. I
suspect that the clean-air requirements currently on the table, which come
seven years after Michigan voters approved of medical marijuana, could face
numerous legal challenges in court.
Yet, the measure appears near the end of tonight’s city
agenda, approved for submission by council Secretary Scott Stevens (who’s also
up for re-election in November). It’s important to note that Warren government’s
notoriously anti-openness methods come into play.
For many years, city council
meetings routinely have lasted beyond midnight, giving taxpayers limited
ability to keep tabs on their elected officials’ actions, despite cable TV
broadcasts.
long. The Fouts ordinance appears on page 406.
morning as you prepare to head off to work, the Warren City Council could still
be busy debating this overwhelming anti-marijuana measure.
Unless, of course,
council members got the munchies in the middle of the night and headed off to
Taco Bell, where there’s a good chance that they would have been hanging out with
the local potheads.
My son uses medical marijuana for debilitating pain, it's hard enough for him to take care of daily life without having to jump through a bunch of hoops and have people tromp through his house. Sounds to me like a violation of civil rights