Group Moves Ahead In Push To Legalize Pot In Ferndale
FERNDALE (WWJ) - If this campaign succeeds, voters in Ferndale could decide in November if they want people aged 21 and over to be able to legally possess less than an ounce of marijuana.
Tim Beck, who chairs the Coalition for a Safer Michigan, was on hand as a supporter turned in 600 ballot signatures to the Ferndale city clerk on Tuesday.
Beck predicts big wins on this issue in Ferndale, as well as in Jackson and Lansing.
"This could be the tipping point where the legislature could pass a decrim[inalization] law like they have done in 17 other states across this country," Beck told WWJ Newsradio 950's Pat Sweeting.
"This is nothing radical. This is nothing extreme, ya' know what we are doing," Beck said. "There's much, much precedent for that in other states. And, believe me, in those states the world has not come to an end. Drug addiction has not spiked;
kids have not gone wild in the streets."
This would free up police, Beck said, to focus more time on what he calls "real crime."
Ferndale resident Andrew Cissell, who is running for State Representative in 2014, spoke to the media and he handed in the stack of signatures.
"For me, I had a personal agenda to get my name out there — but the movement, as a whole, which is what I'm truly fighting for, is to promote freedom, democracy and liberty in the country," Cissell said. "I feel like it's being taken away from us more and more each day. So I feel like this was a small step at the local level to promote freedom."
After the signatures are validated, Ferndale City Council can either pass the petition language into law as written or the voters will decide in November.
