Tens of hundreds of thousands of {dollars} have been doled out to native governments throughout Michigan because of the state’s hashish trade.
FOX 2 Detroit reports that the state despatched out almost $60 million to counties and native governments.
“Native governments which have permitted the leisure sale of weed of their county, metropolis, village, or township will see roughly $51,800 for each retail retailer and micro-business that it’s handed out licenses to,” the station says.
According to FOX 2 Detroit, “Solely 30% of whole adult-use gross sales go to native governments, with the opposite 70% going to varsities and roads. When contributions from final yr are paired subsequent to figures from 2021 and 2020, they present an trade that reveals no indicators of slowing down.”
Voters within the state legalized adult-use hashish in 2018, once they permitted Proposal 1.
That initiative made it authorized for adults 21 and older to toke up, and cleared the best way for a regulated hashish market that launched in 2019.
However regardless of sturdy gross sales numbers, Michigan, like different regulated hashish markets, has turn out to be oversupplied with pot.
Politico reported final yr that the “variety of hashish develop operations serving the state’s leisure market has virtually doubled up to now yr,” and that the “variety of lively marijuana vegetation now exceeds 1.2 million, roughly six occasions the amount seen in 2020.”
“Michigan has method an excessive amount of weed,” Politico said then.
“By one estimate, Michigan has sufficient cultivation capability to produce thrice as a lot weed because the state’s customers are shopping for — and that doesn’t embody the massive unlawful market that by all accounts instructions a big share of gross sales.”
That, according to Politico, makes Michigan “emblematic of what’s been taking place throughout the nation all yr — and why the trade’s been in a funk at the same time as legalization spreads: In poor health-fated hopes {that a} Democratic-controlled Washington would possibly loosen decades-old restrictions on the drug have given method to a market glut and plummeting costs which have put scores of companies susceptible to collapse.”
However that’s not to say that Michigan’s leisure hashish trade hasn’t skilled progress.
As FOX 2 Detroit noted, “224 municipalities had registered 1,148 enterprise licenses” final yr. That’s up from 163 municipalities and 748 licenses in 2021, and 104 municipalities and 356 licenses in 2020.
The station has more details on the state’s newest hashish gross sales figures:
“The most recent figures come from the Michigan Division of Treasury which reported $198.4 million in income from leisure pot final yr. One other $69.4 million will go to College Support Fund, whereas $69.4 million will go to the transportation fund. In whole, $1.8 billion in gross sales from weed got here final yr. To place that in context, there have been $341 million in whole gross sales in 2020. In 2021, the state reported $1.1 billion in gross sales.”
Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, a Democrat, supported Proposal 1.
Late final yr, Whitmer vetoed a number of Republican-sponsored payments that, amongst different issues, aimed to ease entry to the state’s medical hashish program, which started in 2008, for each sufferers and potential operators.
In her veto message, Whitmer mentioned that the proposals had been handed swiftly by lawmakers and required nearer examination.
“I look ahead to working with the brand new Legislature in January on priorities that can proceed our financial momentum, assist decrease prices, and increase schooling helps for Michigan college students. It’s time to be critical about fixing issues and getting issues performed that can make working households’ lives higher proper now,” Whitmer mentioned on the time.