If you're looking for medical marijuana, the Traverse Narcotics Teams says you'll have to look outside Wexford County.
All Wexford County medical marijuana facilities are shut down tonight. Police confiscated their products today.
TNT served five medical marijuana dispensaries with search warrants and told them they needed to close up shop. Police say the facilities are breaking the state's medical marijuana law.
The narcotics team says this isn't the beginning, but the end of their investigation. many of the dispensaries say they never saw today's raid coming. "And there was no heads up, no nothing," says Cheryl Snider, owner of Summer Island in Cadillac.
Police searched five medical marijuana facilities today in Cadillac and Mesick and served them with cease and desist letters. "I mean if they would have sent us a letter and said, hey ya know this is what we would like to do a moratorium in Wexford County, at least give us a heads up because then we could help our patients," says Snider. Snider tells 9&10 News that police took thousands of dollars and all of her medicine. Her first concern wasn't the items being taken. "I'm more concerned about the patients that are out there that all of us dispensaries help, and provisioning centers because we don't just dispense medical marijuana, they're like family, they're like friends, you get to know them, it's hard," says Snider.
Blue Spruce Gallery, Summer Island, Mesick Farmacy, Magic Buds, and Best Cadillac Provisions serve a lot of people in the Wexford County area. "I probably have a good 100, 150 people that are, most of them range from fibromyalgia all the way to cancer. So, it's all different kinds of ailments," says Snider.
Traverse Narcotics Team says by Michigan state law, facilities are only allowed to serve five patients and themselves. "I think for a lot of the people who were involved, it was a learning experience, some of the people believed that they were with what they were doing was legal, we explained to them why it wasn't," says Lt. Frank Keck, Michigan State Police task force section commander.
The Wexford County prosecutor says Michigan's Medical Marijuana Act was poorly written, and recent court cases backs today's police action. "It's an attempt to deal with not only the marijuana but the element that that type of trafficking brings to counties," says Anthony Badovinac, Wexford County prosecutor.
Meanwhile marijuana patients and providers are stuck until there's some sort of legal resolution. "Right now, they're all in limbo, same as us," says Snider.
The prosecutor says these dispensaries have 30 days to close or they will face criminal charges.
http://www.9and10news.com/story/25978363/drug-teams-searching-five-medical-marijuana-dispensaries
