Proponents of a Michigan voter initiative effort to legalize and regulate the personal use and retail sale of cannabis today turned in more than 360,000 signatures in an effort to qualify the measure for the November 2018 ballot. Advocates must possess a total of 252,523 valid signatures from registered voters in order to place the initiative — the Michigan Regulation and Taxation of Marihuana Act — on next year’s ballot.
The initiative permits those over the age of 21 to possess and grow personal use quantities of cannabis and related concentrates, while also licensing activities related to the commercial marijuana production and retail marijuana sales.
Proponents of the effort, The Coalition to Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol, include members of the Marijuana Policy Project, the ACLU of Michigan, the Drug Policy Alliance, the National Patients Rights Association, Michigan NORML, MI Legalize, the Michigan Cannabis Coalition, and lawyers from the State Bar of Michigan Marijuana Law Section. Today’s press conference is archived on the Coalition’s Facebook page here.
Advocates sought to place a similar measure on the Michigan ballot in 2016. That effort was ultimately turned back when lawmakers imposed and the courts upheld new rules limiting the time frame during which signatures could be collected.
Marijuana law reform advocates are presently gathering signatures for voter-initiated efforts in Missouri and Utah. Proponents of a medical marijuana initiative in South Dakota have turned in their signatures and are awaiting a review by the Secretary of State’s office. A statewide initiative legalizing the use of medical marijuana in Oklahoma has already qualified for the 2018 electoral ballot.
This is really interesting
Our movement is strong out here. But we have an enormous fight ahead of us. See you on the other side.
You can help out at:
http://www.milegalize.com/
One final thing for now and for the record.
I have long said we needed a Midwestern state, and that we have needed to open up the Midwestern area. It is long overdue.
Later, and thanks, all.
M
Great job Michigan!!
I’m lovin the “joint” cooperation and teamwork from all the different marijuana advocacy groups; talk about an epic battle! The villains? Insys Therapuetics, corrupt beurocrats, the Sacklers, Mercers, Putin, our own DOJ, Sheldon Adelson and John Paulson to name a few. It’s a civil Cold War this winter. We need to weed out the bad guys and
Make sure every signature is REGISTERED TO VOTE! Either we check it or a prosecutor will. (You know theyre gonna challenge this in court. May as well be prepared).
Meanwhile California; start buying scooters, motorcycles and dirt bikes!
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/25868498/
If the Rohrabacher Amendment passes were going to have to buy some actual diesel that is purple, strap it to a motorcycle that can fo off road and deliver all around the feds. Time to get creative… This is the climax of our American Marijuana Prohibition Tragedy. Now is the time for everyone to take action for the sake of all our freedom.
Woops; wrong link;
https://www.alternet.org/drugs/california-rules-legal-marijuana-what-expect?akid=16374.2366751.887yPp&rd=1&src=newsletter1085444&t=24
This link shows the regs on California’s new law including “motor vehicles” for transportation of marijuana.
Sorry; I was immersed in researching how Insys Therapuetics who owns the patent on synthetic marijuana dronabinol are behind the false case report that blamed marijuana over the baby who died from myocarditis. Turns out CBD is synergistically medication for myocarditis through whole plant marijuana. Its the synthetics that are poison… and the money the launder through our doctors and churches.
Insys Therapeutics–I’d like to see a few of their CEOs spend some quality time in prison.
Drumph said today that Big Pharma is “Getting away with murder.” When the Greediest President of the United States since Andrew Jackson says that… we have to imagine that Big Pharma actually out-hogged dollar$ from Donald Drumph. Amazing. Insys Therapeutics is even lower down the totem pole than Trump. (But only because Trump wanted the easy money…)
Come on Michigan!
I figure if Michigan can legalize, and we already have Maine and Massachusetts in our column, then New York may start to seriously move our way, too.
New York State and City will be a MASSIVE victory, a crown jewel. Perhaps just as important if not more so than a state such as even mighty Texas, Florida….
New York State is critical, once we have it there is no stopping us.
M
I agree. Same with California. Once the revenues and tax money from Recreational sales starts pouring in there, I think it will be very difficult to turn the tide.
My modest experience with collecting signatures for marijuana legalization is: give ’em an opportunity, and they’ll sign. The people that don’t sign are often still supportive, but just scared to associate their name with reform efforts.
The people want it legalized. The Corporations don’t. Who’s side is your politician on?
The Resistance will punish Trump at the voting booth with a Democratic wave; in fact, it’s already begun. We who care about People over Profits must ensure that these Democrats are not more prohibitionists in disguise, that is to say, corporate shills.
Corporations will be the ones paying for these politicians’ campaigns. And, as the Trumpcare debacle and the Republican tax heist amply demonstrate, the corporations will be expecting a return on their investment.
But We The People ain’t corporate property, bitches!
We will indeed punish Trump, and all his sick-fuck supporters. They got it coming, big time.
But we must also be sure to elect true progressive Democrats, and not simply elect more corporate whores with a “D” after their name.
You will know the difference by seeing who is unafraid to support marijuana legalization, and who is simply playing dumb.
Speak for yourself buddy. I’m not a democrat nor do I have any interest in voting them in anywhere. Not a republican either but that’s beside the point. Maybe try not to tie legalization efforts that Everyone supports to one political party and alienate nearly half your potential allies yeah?
@ Giant Octopodes,
No. Wrong. You don’t just get it — I do wish to alienate Trump supporters and Republican enablers, for the simple reason that these jackoffs are bad for marijuana legalization.
We aren’t going to let a bunch of sick-fuck white supremacists insinuate themselves into the marijuana legalization movement in order to promote their white supremacist agenda. Again, that is bad for the cause of legalization.
That’s why nobody wants the endorsement of the KKK, or Nazis, or pedophiles. If you support these creeps, you’re a very sick fuck, and you’re of no help to us who wish to legalize marijuana.
Have I alienated you yet?
http://www.norml.org/congressional-scorecard
We support ANY candidate, Republican, Democrat or Independent that will legalize marijuana. It’s called leverage. Click on the Act tab and use it often.
Well, except for racist pedophiles.
I’ll work with Rohrabacher even though he’s a Russian spook because his amendment needs to get renewed before Dec 8th to keep the feds off mmj dispensaries. Libertarians make me want to put on a tin hat but sometimes theyre the only Republicans that want to work across the aisle to reform marijuana law. Gary Johnson fell too hard off the stupid tree for me though.
I have to say if I were voting in Alabama, I couldnt vote for Mo Brooks, even if he were the only candidate that supports legal mmj. He stuck with Roy Moore even after the allegations and evidence and Moores repulsive response to sexual assault of minors.
And then Moore went and attacked Brooks for supporting mmj! It’s like watching a bunch of retarted Trumpanzees with handguns shooting at eachother and in all directions.
@ Julian,
Right. But we don’t support lying sons of bitches like Trump, because we do not intend to be fucked over by a con artist who hates all drugs, and loves all violence. Nor do we support his reefer-madness addled AG, Sessions, nor his pedophile buddy Moore, down in Alabama.
Nor do we support Trump supporters, for the same reason, regardless of how much they claim to support legalization, because they are either lying or stupid. Their actions speak louder than their words.
Trump and Sessions are drug warriors with no interest in legalization whatsoever. They are racist, sexist, and white supremacist. They are fascists; and fascism is inherently bad for legalization, obviously.
So saferinneworleans can just bite me.
Oh; that’s Giant Octopodes that can bite me, I mean. But yeah, the same advice goes for Trump apologist saferinneworleans, too.
Giant Octopodes,
So . . . your support of MJ legalization depends on whether or not you approve of the comments on this forum?
Churches are laundering money for drug cartels, pharmaceutical industries and political campaigns against our freedom and civil rights.
In Alabama, the problem has been quite rampant;
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.forbes.com/sites/walterpavlo/2013/11/18/fraud-thriving-in-u-s-churches-but-you-wouldnt-know-it/amp/
Yet even independent news is biting the bait of “tribalism” instead of seeing the money laundering criminality for what is; the source of the problem. Evangelicals are defending a prohibitionist pedophile and serial rapist candidate, Roy Moore, for Senate FOR THE MONEY LAUNDERING THROUGH THE CHURCH. Hence, the tax code;
“Every organization exempt from federal income tax under IRS 501(a) must file an annual information return except: 1) A church …. “
During 2016 elections, the Catholic Archdiocese of Boston funneled at least $1million from Big Pharma through the church in a thankfully failed attempt to stop marijuana legalization in that state.
I consider myself a religious, practising Catholic. I may have some personal beliefs that are unorthadox (no, I dont take the bible literally, just metaphorically) but I always tythed a few dollars because I believed in the sanctuary of the church (not that I would leave my kids alone with the Priest, Im just sayin…) but it’s a place to go and pray with a sense of community in times of need.
But my tything has stopped since the last campaign. I’m treating the church like a bum on the street; you get food, or I’ll even volunteer my time but no money until the law stops letting the bad money laundering go unreported to drug thugs like Insys Therapuetics. I’ve been working too hard to legalize marijuana in the state of Texas to have my hard-earned donations work against me and my family and community’s safety and best interests. It’s time to change the way churches report their taxes.
I don’t think Roy Moore is too fond of weed….going to suck if people are so stupid as to vote him right into office because almighty TRUMP decides to campaign for him, and that we are all swamp creatures, and that we are all “traitors” because we do not support locking people up, border wall, those precious “family values,” religion, etc.
Backwards hick mentality. The 2016 election was truly disgusting.
Truly deplorable.
M
Matt,
Dont be so sure Roy Moore wont win. Aside from how gerrymandered and Cro$$checked Alabama is in favor of Republican white votes, you missed the point of what kind of conscious, cultural, or even cult-like grip that the evangelical church has on their patrons due to the fact that churches in the United States under a 501(a) tax category do not have to disclose where they get their money from or who it goes to. Since the depolrable Citizen United decision that removed caps to campaign spending churches have effectively been converted to money laundering washing mashines where party and salvation appear to dominate genuine morality and wisdom.
Roy Moore is washing brains for dollars by saying “God” should return to politics and there should be no seperation of church and state, (because the Russian orthadox church would NEVER take advantage of our politicians if we let them).
The irony is that if Moore really wanted to “separate church and state” he should first advocate that churches disclose their finances entirely on their tax returns. His opponent, Doug Jones should be all over that message, but to suggest the church is attacking and preying upon its own constituents is risky business… it means cult members have to turn against their own families, even if they have evidence, let’s say, that American churches are laundering money for Purdue and the Sinaloa cartel and dumped millions to keep marijuana illegal.
I’ve joked before how the First Church of Cannabis should launder money for marijuana dispensaries. But only fairly taxed regulations and transparent returns with campaign spending caps can solve the behemoth opponent of marijuana legalization that is where political and religious money laundering meet the poppy trade.
Bigger response coming, Julian. Look, however, what I also found, and thank you FOR your response….
For the moment….:
https://altoday.com/archives/17921-roy-moore-blasts-mo-brooks-ridiculous-support-marijuana-legalization
Check out the comment by NIGEL, in the comments section of this article, Julian.
EXCELLENT.
M
Very interesting article. I wouldn’t vote for the Republican Congressman Mo Brooks now that he’s defending mmj; not after the way he defended Moore after the evidence came out about his pedophelia. I’ll leverage my bets with legalization between candidates as much as I can tolerate but dupporting Moore or Trump is crossing the line.
If you live in Missouri or Utah, I strongly encourage you to volunteer with the activist campaigns there, to help collect signatures from registered voters, in order to help get these legalization initiatives on the ballot.
I think you will find the experience liberating and deeply fulfilling, whether you’re in it for the social justice, or maybe just some personal payback.
Participate; when you enable another voter’s voice to be heard by collecting their signature, you empower them and you empower yourself. The satisfaction is unmatched. Empower yourself, and earn your very own bragging rights as a marijuana legalization activist!
Congrats and good luck in 2018. Medical is a joke here in the sunshine state. Cities banning dispensaries all over the place. We need it legal down south!!!
If you live in Missouri, you can volunteer to collect signatures by contacting the campaign:
http://www.newapproachmissouri.com/initiative
If you live in Utah, you can volunteer by contacting their campaign:
https://www.utahpatients.org
Join The Resistance! Don’t get mad, get legal!
I’m a pretty big Trump supporter. I also lovee Russia. Definitely conservative. But one thing I’ve always supported is Marijuana. I wish you guys at NORML would finally figure out that Trump doesnt care, in fact he supported marijuana more than Hillary if you looked at the offical statements. Anyway, very glad to see more legalization in the midwest. Now the blue state of New York needs to get with the program.
Oh Andrew, Andrew, Andrew… Who is morr tje fool? The fool? Or the fool that follows him?
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.vanityfair.com/style/2017/11/donald-trump-rodrigo-duterte-shake-hands/amp
@ Andrew Tilke,
Sorry, but you having always “supported marijuana” does not mean you are helping the cause of marijuana legalization. In fact, your support for Trump AND RUSSIAN COLLUSION means you are BAD for the cause of marijuana legalization.
Therefore, we do not need or want your help. So fuck off, Nazi!
When I said in previous posts that deplorable Trump supporters were saying that Trump is a friend of marijuana, I wasn’t making this stuff up. Here’s your proof. Exhibit A. BTW Hillary wouldn’t have appointed a retrograde racist hypocritical perjuring reefer mad bigot like Sessions for Attorney General or would have praised Filipino President Duterte’s murderous drug war.
You nailed that one Sean.
What we have now is states making it so that only corporations can grow marijuana and large taxes in the 25% range and even greater than that. At the same time the laws against marijuana cultivation, possession and sales are barely being touched.
What does this mean? It means that the black market will continue to be huge and that the drug war will for all actual purposes continue. This is a sad reality. Until we legalize this plant at the federal level and get rid of ALL personal possession and sales laws then the drug war will continue.
I also want to point out the absolute hypocritical pro drug war position taken by NORML and marijuana users who are pushing the drug war against opiates, which come from a FLOWER! Shame, shame on NORML and others for pushing the drug war. We the people have a right to use all recreational plants. NO MORE DRUG WAR AGAINST PLANTS and MUSHROOMS!
Carlos, I have posted on this website on every blog for more years than I can count, and the only reference to opioids I have ever read were studies and reports from NORML Deputy Director Paul Armentano showing how opioid addiction and suicides are reducing in states with legalized medical and recreational marijuana.
Where did you get the misinformation that we are against opioid legalization?
Carlos,
They said the same thing about Colorado and Washington–taxes and regulation were gonna keep the black markets operating at full steam. Guess what. The black markets in both of those states are gasping for breath while the legalized MJ industry is booming.
In Colorado, legalized MJ was a bit expensive initially; but now it’s very cheap and better than most bud you can get on the black market. Don’t believe me? Check out the websites that advertise Rec MJ in Colorado.
Before the dispensaries, Civic Center Park in Denver was an open air pot market. There were ongoing arrests, but the deals continued on whatever side of the park the cops were not arresting someone. A larger crackdown would put the market on hold for a matter of hours,but when the heat was off, the market was back.
You could get some okay weed, some green, for fifty an eighth. There might be some better deals, but not many, and those were mostly for lesser quality brickweed…. mota.
Now, after the arrival of the dispensaries, the open air pot market is no more. (Yes, there are still lots of street deals going on, but the park is civilian again now… open to tourists and families once more.)
Now? Just bought a recreational half ounce of killer for under sixty. Pure and clean, haven’t seen a seed in years. So yeah, better deals.
Thank you Mark for your candid testimony.
I also recall that before Colorado legalized marijuana there was a terrible drought there and the housing industry had collapsed. Colorado couldn’t even figure out how to PAY law enforcement to bust us with the good weed we HAD.
In 2010, during the recession here in Texas, I was helping a couple of Colorado builders frame a +17,000 sq ft home. One of the brothers was really cool. I told him that “I hated guys who left cigarette butts around the job, but guys who smoked weed never left a roach.”
He agreed.
We had dinner one evening and he confessed that the reason he and the clients (owners of the resort-home we were building) were so close is that they both had children who were autistic. I had recently read on this NORML blog (2010) about how consuming whole plant marijuana was helping autistic kids recover to “Normal” function by shutting the brain receptor off that stayed open which caused their autism.
So I told this very wealthy builder at some stupid chain restaurant that the lumber salesman invited us to how the “Drug Czar” or “Director” of the National Institute of Drug Abuse were required “to use our tax dollars” under the Controlled Substances Act to “deny the medical efficacy of whole plant marijuana,”
…
…And I watched his face change permanently. To this day, I wish I had the balls (or rude class) to call him up and ask him if he participated in the legalization of marijuana in Colorado in 2012. (I’m guessing; YES).
Little conversations like this are like drops of water causing ripples in the ocean.
Believe it or not, I still talk to people–pot smokers–who poo poo the idea of legalization. One of them has a solid black market connection, so he’s pretty cavalier about it; doesn’t even believe there’s a difference in any strains!! But this same guy smokes every day like a train, so I think it’s become more of a habit, like cigarettes, so I’m not sure he’d appreciate any difference any way. (But he must’ve stumbled onto a website that shows the price of Rec MJ in Colo, or else one of his buddies at work educated him, because he’s not quite as cavalier as he used to be.)
Another is about the same–has a solid BM (lol) connection–so again, cavalier. But I know he knows that legalized in better in every way, but too stubborn to admit it. Sad.
Dispensaries have given me the opportunity to learn, from personal first-hand experience, about the differences between various strains, and their medical applications. Most available strains are hybrids between indicas and sativas, and are considered to be either “sativa dominant” or “indica dominate,” depending on the percentage of the different strains.
But cannabis provides many more health benefits than are on the short list of “qualifying conditions” for legal Colorado medical marijuana patients.
For one example: there were no psychological maladies on the original list of qualifying coneditions, until PTSD was recently added after extensive lobbying by vets.
But, anxiety is not the same thing as depression. From my experience, for deep stress and anxiety, a solid indica is likely the best choice. Yet, for depression and fatigue, the right sativa can help lift your spirits, and get you moving again.
Any weed is better than no weed. But the right strain is medically preferable, definitely; and the ability to choose any or all of those for ourselves represents an advance in the degree of civilization in our society, to that extent.
@Evening Bud:
Every time we purchase state legalized weed we vote with our dollars. Keep prying our opponents: make our enemies our friends.
@Mark
Agree %100 on your analysis of strains
Mark,
I totally concur. I’m an indica-dominant type myself. Euphoria mixed with happy thoughts. My wife’s more sativa-dominant, tho she uses the indicas for insomnia.
Julian, you’re a bro, and I agree that we should try to make our enemies our friends, but I gotta tell you that this one guy I’m talking about voted Trump and as of last week was still a proud Trump supporter. He definitely has a Libertarian attitude too . . .
Well, in 1970 someone gave me some alleged opium, I ate it, and was throwing up for hours. Some PLANTS are poisonous (yes, the taste of tobacckgo also tells me something).
Not arguing for drug war, just legalizing cannabis coupled with conversion from hot burning overdose monoxide puffpapers to a 25-mg microdose utensil should solve the problem of kids getting led into poisons.
Damn, I’m happy for MI, but it just makes me sad to live so close yet so far away. Fuck Minnesota. Personal-use growing is KEY to the success of cannabis’s genetic diversity. It can also allow prices to plummet so everyone can afford medicine. After all, it’s a Plant!
But of course MN can’t allow that. It’s all about monopoly here. It’s a joke; an absolute farce of a “program.” No wonder it’s failing