Michigan’s elections board says organizers of a ballot drive to legalize marijuana for recreation use collected enough signatures to qualify for the November ballot.
John Sinclair, “Michigan’s hippie king,” walked out of Jackson’s State Prison of Southern Michigan on Dec. 13, 1971 after serving two-and-a-half years of what might have been a 10-year prison sentence for marijuana possession.
Surrounded by a cheering crowd, a television reporter quizzed Sinclair as he embraced family and friends outside of the prison gate.
“After all of the trouble you’ve gone through Mr. Sinclair, how do you feel about marijuana? Do you still feel…”
“I wanna smoke some joints, man!” Sinclair interrupted.
Standing well over 6 feet tall with a mane of curly dark hair, Sinclair was a minor celebrity in Michigan’s counterculture: the manager for the Detroit rock band MC5 and the gregarious chairman of the White Panther Party, a revolutionary organization named in solidarity with the Black Panther Party.
He proclaimed that marijuana was safe, the government was oppressive and young people were going to take over the country.
The press characterized him as “colorful and quotable.” Police labeled him a threat to public safety.
The Michigan Supreme Court found him convincing.
The court fight that followed Sinclair’s arrest for marijuana possession in 1967 — and the “Free John Now!” publicity campaign launched by artist and activist Leni Sinclair, who was John’s wife at the time — briefly overturned Michigan’s marijuana laws and gave hope to Michigan’s more optimistic marijuana enthusiasts that legalization was within reach.
Story by – Ryan A. Huey, for the Lansing State Journal
Published 7:30 a.m. ET Feb. 8, 2018
Higher education takes on new meaning in Pueblo County, Colorado.
In February, local officials announced that a first-of-its-kind scholarship program will create $475,000 in funding to help send the county’s graduating high school seniors to local colleges.
A majority of the fund – about $425,000 – came from taxing legal marijuana.
“A couple years ago, these are dollars that would have been going to the black market, drug cartels,” Pueblo County commissioner Sal Pace told KKTV in an interview. “Now money that’s used to fund drug cartels is now being used to fund college scholarships.”
Marijuana has been legal for recreational use in Colorado since 2012. Pueblo County, located about an hour’s drive south of resort town Colorado Springs, began collecting a 2% excise tax on all weed grown there in 2016. The tax will increase 1% annually until 2021.
Students who live in Pueblo County and graduate from high school this spring automatically qualify for a chunk of the fund. County officials expect a $1,000 payout for every applicant, which they can put toward tuition at Pueblo Community College or Colorado State University-Pueblo (which gets about 300 and 400 incoming freshmen from the county every year).
While $1,000 would not stretch far at a private university, in-state tuition costs about $3,000 a year at PCC and up to $6,000 annually at CSU-Pueblo, depending on the number of credit hours taken. The Pueblo County Scholarship could put a substantial dent in student debt.
The scholarship fund is expected to grow as the rate of taxation increases. Pace told The Huffington Post that only half of the marijuana cultivators licensed to grow were operational last year, and the county expects to generate extra revenue as more farms come online in 2017.
Colorado isn’t the only state to put legal marijuana revenues to good use.
In California, which legalized recreational marijuana in 2016 but won’t sell it in stores until 2018, residents will pay a 15% tax on sales of the drug, generating up to $1 billion in new tax revenue annually. Ten million dollars (increasing annually for five years until it reaches $50 million) will help support communities disproportionately harmed by the war on drugs.
We know where marijuana law and access in Michigan is going in the short term. Two recent legal developments have laid it out.
The first development is that there will be no vote on legalizing recreational use of marijuana on this year’s ballot. It’s been lingering on life support as MI Legalize went through various legal challenges and appeals in the state courts to get the signatures on their petitions counted. But it died when the state Supreme Court refused the case. There is still a federal challenge to the state decision, but even if there were a win down the road on that front, it wouldn’t happen in time for a vote this year. A federal judge denied a motion to stop the printing of ballots for this year’s election.
Not that MI Legalize has given up the effort. The organization is pursuing a federal appeal. At the same time the group is reorganizing — with lessons learned — for an attempt to get on the ballot for 2018, a gubernatorial election year. Presidential elections bring out more voters, which is what MI Legalize was hoping for, but apparently they don’t want to wait four years before calling the question again. If public opinion trends keep moving in the direction they have been, it’s a question of when, not if, marijuana will be legalized.
The second development has a more immediate impact for the 212,928 medical marijuana patients registered in the state. Gov. Rick Snyder signed Public Acts 281-283 last week, setting up the system for medical marijuana sales in the state, and possibly giving us a preview of what a recreational sales system will look like down the line. The Michigan Medical Marihuana Act (MMMA) did not specifically account for marijuana dispensaries for distribution, and some counties enforced the catch-22 of “patients may have marijuana, but there’s no place to buy it.” Now there can be dispensaries, and it is up to local municipalities whether they want to allow them or not.
PA 281, the Medical Marihuana Facilities Licensing Act, regulates the growth, processing, transport, sales, and taxation of medical marijuana. The law creates three levels for growing licenses: up to 500 plants; up to 1,000 plants; and up to 1,500 plants.
PA 282 changes the Michigan Medical Marijuana Act to allow for extracts, oils, and infused products. That was another testy point, because the MMMA specifically referred to the “dried leaves and flowers” of the marihuana plant, but not extracts made from them. State law enforcement was never comfortable with high potency substances made from marijuana extracts.
A seed-to-sale tracking system for medical marijuana — known as the Marihuana Tracking Act, or PA 283 — was tacked on later in the process with backing from business interests and law enforcement.
The laws take effect immediately, although in practical terms the only one that matters is PA 282, for patients who need oils and extracts. The practicalities of how the licensing is administered will be up to a new state-appointed board.
Getting the laws in place is an important point in a long and ongoing process. Whether they are good or not depends on who you talk to.
“When we first started approaching public officials and legislators, most of them didn’t even want to talk to us about medical marijuana,” says Robin Schneider of the National Patients Rights Association. “Many didn’t believe there was medicinal benefit at all. We spent years debating with law enforcement about regulations, the need for transporting security, and seed-to-sale tracking. The two opposite sides had to meet in the middle.”
That was spoken like a veteran of political negotiating. Schneider has spent six years working in Lansing trying to get something like these laws passed and sees them as a good thing. She’s seen the opposition up close and personal, and believes this is a major victory, particularly for patients who need extracts and oils.
The regulations do reflect something of a law enforcement approach when you look at the seed-to-sale tracking and secure transport provisions. This generates questions as to how the governor-appointed Marihuana Advisory Council will approach its duties. Will it take an oppositional or nurturing attitude to a new industry in the state?
“The bills were driven, written, and approved by the law enforcement community, which will not have the same interests in the success of the program as the dispensary people,” says attorney Michael Komorn, president of the Michigan Medical Marijuana Association. “This is a police oversight program that has nothing to do with the medical marijuana act. It’s a license that is supervised by the law enforcement team akin to the liquor control system.”
At the very least, the new laws add layers of bureaucracy to the distribution of medical marijuana, which was expected. It also regulates where some of the money in a lucrative new industry will go. Dr. Gary Wolfram, a Hillsdale College economist, has given a conservative estimate that the state will collect $63 million annually in fees and taxes, while generating about 10,000 jobs.
The money involved helps draw in those reluctant to engage with marijuana. With tight budgets and reluctance to raise taxes, this is an opportunity for state resources. It also draws in others who want to get a piece of that financial action. Will there be a level playing field for anyone to join in? Or will it be stacked toward those who are — for lack of a better reference — friends of the governor?
“I’m still skeptical of this legislature and their plans,” says Jamie Lowell of the Third Coast Compassion Club in Ypsilanti, the first licensed dispensary in Michigan. “How will the state actually treat this process? I’m a little paranoid. I’ve seen enough shenanigans and tomfoolery to have legitimate questions.”
Lowell is active with the MI Legalize group and is feeling the sting of the state legislature’s action to block the legalization petitions, such as a law passed last spring that kept all the signatures collected from being counted.
Not everybody is holding hands and singing the praises of these laws. But they are adding some definition to contested provisions of the MMMA that have led to legal problems and even imprisonment for some. At least the question of whether dispensaries are legal in Michigan is settled. They are.
“I think it’s a good thing anytime you get a little more regulation and a little more transparency,” says Julius Dubose, founder of Dubs Apothecary, a self-described mobile facility that has had its wares at medical marijuana events in Detroit. Dubose wants to open a storefront facility soon. The new laws make that possibility much more clear.
“I’m open to any municipality that will allow it,” Dubose says.
Michigan’s new medical marijuana laws may not be the most enlightened, but they do provide more clarity for those who want to operate dispensaries and produce extracts. And for most, just knowing what the rules are will make a difference.
Thursday, September 8, 2016 at 2:53 p.m.
A Chandler-based drug firm under investigation for its aggressive sales of a lethal painkiller claims that the large donation it made to a group that opposes marijuana legalization was an attempt to protect the public’s safety.
Insys Therapeutics, Inc., which has made billions selling a fentanyl-based drug called Subsys, expects to soon launch a pharmaceutical version of THC, the main psychoactive ingredient in cannabis.
But first, it aims to eliminate the competition.
On August 31, Insys made a $500,000 donation to Arizonans for Responsible Drug Policy, (ARDP), a group that’s trying to convince voters to reject Proposition 205 in the November 8 election. The ballot initiative, if approved, would grant adults 21 and older the freedom to use, possess, and grow marijuana, and would set up a limited system of cannabis retail outlets.
Prop 205 “fails to protect the safety of Arizona’s citizens, and particularly its children,” according to a statement Insys provided to New Times on Thursday in response to a message left for CEO John Kapoor. “Our stance is consistent with our company’s goals. We strive to develop pharmaceutical products for the supportive care of patients while taking patient safety very seriously. To that end, we believe that all available medicines should meet the clinical standards set by the FDA.”
Yet while Insys holds itself out as the savior of Arizonans’ health, the company is reportedly under investigation in four states, including Arizona, for marketing practices related to Subsys that have allegedly resulted in patient deaths.
According to numerous published reports, Insys salespeople pushed the highly potent drug on doctors for uses beyond cancer pain, for which it was designed. A favored Wall Street buy until critical news stories caused its stock price to plummet in 2015, the publicly held company was most recently sued over its practices by the state of Illinois.
“The consumer fraud lawsuit follows an investigation by the state into allegations that Insys was marketing Subsys broadly for chronic pain in non-cancer patients, despite the lack of Food and Drug Administration approval for such use,” according to an August 26 article in the Chicago Tribune.
J.P. Holyoak, chairman of the group behind Prop 205, the Campaign to Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol in Arizona, says that by accepting the Insys donation, ARDP can no longer claim to represent “responsible drug policy.”
“They’re knowingly accepting money from one of the worst actors in the business,” Holyoak says. “This is a company engaged in illegal marketing schemes, that is intentionally hooking people on opioids.”
At a news conference in Phoenix on Thursday morning, Holyoak gave reporters a list of news-story headlines that paint Insys in a harsh light: “Murder Incorporated,” “Nurse Pleads Guilty to Taking Kickbacks From Drug Maker,” “Using Doctors With Troubled Pasts to Market a Painkiller,” among others.
The company is focusing on the upcoming launch of its synthetic THC product, Syndros. An oral version of the generic, THC-imitation drug dronabinol, Syndros would be used to treat anorexia associated with AIDS patients, as well as the nausea and vomiting that typically accompanies chemotherapy, according to the Insys website.
“Approximately 9,500 prescribers account for 70% of current dronabinol prescriptions,” the company asserts on its website. “Insys expects to convert a large portion of the market to Syndros as well as expand the market through direct detailing to physicians, highlighting the improved product profile of Syndros.”
J.P. Holyoak, chair of the Prop 205 campaign, blasted an anti-legalization group for taking $500,000 from a Big Pharma company that’s under investigation for the way it markets an opiate-based drug, and which hopes to produce a pharmaceutical alternative
Insys tells New Times that it “firmly believes in the potential clinical benefits of cannabinoids.” In addition to Syndros, Insys is conducting research on how cannabinoids — the compounds found in cannabis plants — might possibly treat epilepsy, anxiety, and PTSD.
Marijuana advocates claim that ingesting marijuana might be able to do the same thing — only less expensively and without as many side effects. Arizona already has a robust medical-marijuana program with about 100,000 patients and 99 dispensaries. The state’s Joint Legislative Budget Committee estimates that Arizona has a total of about 600,000 regular cannabis consumers who are 21 or older. Except for the medical-marijuana patients, who pay about $300 for their freedoms, Arizona law states that possession of any amount of marijuana, or simply a pipe to smoke it in, is a felony.
Though the American public has become more tolerant of marijuana in recent years, opponents to legalization in Arizona have the establishment on their side. The ARDP has taken money from the alcohol industry, chambers of commerce, construction companies, and medical groups. State campaign-finance reports show that since May, the ARDP has collected about $1 million in contributions, including the half-million check from Insys.
Arizona Governor Doug Ducey has played a big role in soliciting donations for the ARDP, Holyoak says.
Steve Sanghi, CEO of Microchip Technology, told the press in July that he made a $25,000 contribution to the ARDP after receiving a personal phone call from the governor asking for money.
Insys declined to answer follow-up questions, including whether Ducey had urged its recent donation.
Ducey’s office didn’t return a message seeking comment for this story.
The CRMLA, meanwhile, has raised more than $223,000 since May — all from local dispensaries or the national Marijuana Policy Project.