Marijuana keeps popping up on ballots across Michigan six years after voters chose to legalize the drug for adult recreational use.
Pot can be legally consumed in Michigan. But individual communities get to choose whether they want to allow cannabis to be sold, grown, or processed within their borders. A lot of these ballot measures are asking voters to allow such businesses.
Several of those communities have considered the question before through previous ballot proposals or their township boards and city councils. One community’s voters will consider a ban on marijuana retail businesses two years after voting to allow the establishments.
These ballot measures show that controversy around marijuana that still exists in some communities, despite state legalization and growing support for legalizing the drug nationwide.
It’s gotten so mainstream that most presidential candidates have expressed some degree of support for cannabis legalization at the state or national level.
Most of these ballot questions are focused on allowing retail cannabis establishments, often called dispensaries. But they put hard limits on the number of these establishments.
For example, only two dispensaries would be allowed in the cities of Mason or Clawson if their respective marijuana ballot measures pass.
Howell will vote on a similar measure after city officials lost a legal battle to keep it off the ballot. The city would be the first Livingston County community to opt-in to pot sales if the measure passes, according to county Sheriff Michael Murphy.
“There’s been a couple of attempts … to put that on the ballot,” Murphy said in a recent Facebook video. “If the city of Howell residents choose to vote it in then, okay, that’s the way it is. But I would just encourage you to really think about voting no for this.”
Murphy said Howell residents who want marijuana should either grow it themselves or go outside of the county to buy and stock up to the legal limit (2.5 ounces and up to 12 plants) instead of allowing dispensaries.
Down by the Ohio border, a Bedford Township ballot measure seeks to allow up to five retailers.
A political organization called “Bedford Local Control Committee” has spent hundreds on Facebook ads advocating in favor of passing the ballot question.
“While residents already have access to cannabis, our township isn’t benefiting from the potential revenue,” one ad reads. “Meanwhile, neighboring communities like Monroe are raking in over $945,000 annually in cannabis tax revenue. That’s 22% of their total income — revenue that we could use to invest in a safer, stronger Bedford.”
One marijuana ballot measure stands out because it doesn’t allow anything. Royal Oak Township would actually ban cannabis establishments if its ballot measure is passed.
This is the third time in five years that Royal Oak Township citizens have been asked about marijuana on their ballots.
In 2019, voters rejected a question to allow an “unlimited” number of cannabis businesses in a special election where less than 15% of the township’s registered voters participated.
And then in 2022, a majority voted in favor of repealing the township’s ban on marijuana establishments. That was a general election, so turnout was higher.
Since then, no dispensaries have opened their doors in Royal Oak Township, according to the Michigan Marijuana Regulatory Agency. So no existing businesses will be affected by the ban if passed.
It’s not the only community where a marijuana ballot question has come up before in a place where a similar measure is on the ballot again. Nearby Lathrup Village voted to ban marijuana sales in 2022.
A ballot measure this election cycle asks voters to repeal that ban. A separate measure would allow up to two dispensaries and two safety compliance facilities (which test cannabis samples to ensure they are free of contaminants before being sold) in the city.
Not all of the measures are about retail: Lodi Township in Washtenaw County would allow up to five growing operations and two processors if citizens choose to let a measure pass there.
