Hundreds of people spent their Sunday in Lansing to learn about new laws that will impact Michigan's medical marijuana industry.

The laws deal with anything from the growth and sale of medical marijuana to legalizing medical edibles and other non-smokable forms of medical marijuana. 

On Sunday, Dec. 4, the Michigan Cannabis Business Development Group held a conference in an effort to make sure all in the industry know of the upcoming changes.

Early this year, a disabled former automobile body worker named Greg Vialpando explained to lawmakers in New Mexico how medical marijuana helped his chronic back pain.

State legislators were considering a bill backed by workers’ compensation insurers that would have exempted them from paying for medical marijuana. But Mr. Vialpando and another patient described how smoking the drug let them escape years of stupor caused by powerful prescription narcotic drugs known as opioids.

The lawmakers ended up dropping the bill, and Mr. Vialpando’s expenses for buying marijuana are covered by insurance.

“I would recommend that people use medical marijuana over opioids any day,” Mr. Vialpando, 58, said in a telephone interview.

A woman is suing her healthcare provider, Spectrum Health Systems Inc., for revealing to her employer, Michigan-based Gentex Corp., that she uses medical marijuana, reports Business Insurance. The lawsuit, Lisa Richlich v. Spectrum Health Systems Inc., charges Spectrum with violating her privacy under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act and forcing her subsequent resignation. Medical marijuana use is legal in Michigan.

The State of Michigan did not properly audit physician certifications for Michigan medical marijuana cards and one physician certified 11,810 patients – 14% of the total, according to a new audit.

The report released Thursday by Michigan Auditor General Doug Ringler found that 22 other physicians certified a combined 46,854 medical marijuana patients, or 56% of the total for the 2015 fiscal year.

Those numbers raise concerns about "fraudulent physician certification forms," and point to a need for the Department of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs, which administers the Michigan Medical Marijuana Program, to "improve its process to verify physician certifications."

Next month, Greenspoon Marder is holding its “First Annual Cannabis Law and Business Conference.”

With panel discussions on finance, land use and zoning, legalization vs. decriminalization, the firm is hoping to attract 200 attorneys and so-called “Ganjapreneurs” (in practice lingo) to its Nov. 4 conference in Florida — just a few days before voters there look at a ballot initiative to legal marijuana.

A fully developed legal market for medical marijuana in Michigan could lead to millions of dollars in new state tax revenue.

Exactly how much is open to interpretation, but some analysts’ estimates suggest it could top $63 million a year.

New regulations for the state’s medical marijuana industry, signed by Gov. Rick Snyder and taking effect in December (though a licensing system won’t be active until December 2017), will require a 3% excise tax on dispensaries’ gross sales receipts.

The original Bena Riamba — or "Sons of Hemp" — lived in equatorial West Africa in the 1800s. They were a cannabis cult that had spiritual and medicinal uses for the plant. The Bena Riamba were credited with changing the warlike nature of the Bashilange tribe from which they emerged. 

Detroit's Sons of Hemp has also cast a favorable eye on cannabis. According to a press release they recently sent out, the "Sons of Hemp is ... a diverse group of herbalists, caregivers, and medical patients in the hemp/cannabis industry whose sole purpose is to unite, educate, create opportunities and support ownership in every facet of the hemp and cannabis industry."

In the evening of September 24, 2014, Max Lorincz, a 35-year-old father living in Spring Lake, Michigan, discovered his wife passed out on the kitchen floor.

Erica Chittenden was barely breathing.

Lorincz called 911. Then he took the couple’s four-year-old son Dante to the boy’s room and told him to stay inside. Lorincz wanted to spare Dante the sight of his unconscious mother.

Paramedics arrived few minutes later. Patrick Gedeon, a deputy with the Ottawa County Sheriff’s Department, also responded to the call.

U.S. News Updates

Alaska

Alaska’s first commercial cannabis harvests are underway. The first official legal crop comes from Greatland Ganja, a small cultivator on the Kenai Peninsula. Greatland has harvested about 75 pounds of cannabis so far, of an expected total of about 100 pounds consisting of 10 different strains. Unfortunately, however, the first harvest may not have anywhere to go. Distribution and sales are stalled until state-licensed testing laboratories are up and running. At the moment two labs are nearing completion in Anchorage: CannTest hopes to open by mid-October and AK Green Labs aims to be online by early November.

Arkansas

There’s no religious dogma in this church, but these marijuana missionaries are intent in on bringing ostracized stoners back into the fold.

Congregants in this church aren’t high on Jesus. In fact, the very name of the church sounds like lyrics from a rock and (ahem) roll song or the backdrop for a classic Cheech and Chong movie.

It’s true that First Cannabis Church of Logic and Reason’s sacrament might be a doobie or marijuana-infused brownie instead of the body and blood of Christ, and its dogma is steeped in giving thanks to the cannabis plant for its healing nature and the sense of well-being it gives users instead of Jesus’ sacrifices for sinners.