DFP columnist rips MI's GOPer AG for waging war against the people's law

[Bozita]

Brian Dickerson: Schuette wages war against the people's law
12:32 AM, Nov. 13, 2011 | Comments
BRIAN DICKERSON, Detroit Free Press columnist

If there's anything Bill Schuette has established in his first year as Michigan's attorney general -- besides an appetite for media attention rivaling that of Sarah Palin or Geoffrey Fieger -- it's that he won't stand for the federal government to trample on the rights of the people of Michigan.

Unless, or course, the right in question is one that Michigan's top law enforcement official never cared for in the first place. In which case any pretext for ignoring, circumventing or violating the state law that guarantees it is welcome.

I speak, of course, of Schuette's maniacal campaign to single-handedly repeal the Medical Marijuana Act that Michigan voters adopted in 2008 -- by a considerably wider margin (63%-37%), it should be noted, than Schuette enjoyed in his own victory (53%-42%) over a weak Democratic opponent two years later.

-snip-

But the AG has also exploited his office to target medical marijuana users and providers -- precisely the people Michigan voters sought to protect from criminal prosecution when they adopted the MMA. That's a flagrant abuse of authority -- one that undermines respect for the law in general, not just the statute Schuette seeks to subvert.

In his latest initiative, Schuette has opined that police have a legal obligation not to return pot seized from licensed medical marijuana patients because possession of marijuana is still prohibited under federal law. (Never mind that the U.S. Justice Department, which has bigger fish to fry, especially in Detroit, has made clear its lack of interest in prosecuting patients in Michigan and other states that have authorized medical marijuana.)

In fact, the AG warned in an opinion issued late last week, officers who return illegally confiscated marijuana (in seeming compliance with a provision of the MMA that specifically bars its seizure from medical users licensed by the state) are themselves risking criminal prosecution as drug dealers.

-snip-

more...
http://www.freep.com/article/20111113/COL04/111130466/Brian-Dickerson-Schuette-wages-war-against-people-s-law


The comments left by readers are well worth the trip. Even folks on the GOPer side are ripping this assclown bigtime.

[Scuba]

1. Snyder and his policies need to go. How do the good People of Michigan get rid of this turd?

[Uncle Joe]

2. Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread, Bozita.

[provis99]

3. the comment about the US Justice Department is flat out wrong.

In fact, Obama and Holder have been enthusiastic about going after medical marijuana in California and Montana, as we're all aware at DU.