LANSING – Michigan Republicans could become saviors of the state’s $10 billion legal cannabis industry.
Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s plan to more than triple the state’s recreational marijuana excise tax is facing strong resistance in the GOP-controlled House, where Speaker Matt Hill has pledged to block any attempt to raise taxes, including on cannabis.
The proposal, part of Whitmer’s $3.5 billion plan to fix Michigan’s crumbling roads, would increase the cannabis excise tax from 10% to 32%, in addition to the state’s 6% sales tax. Industry advocates and lawmakers from both parties warn the tax hike could devastate small cannabis businesses and push consumers back to the illicit market.
Hall, a Republican from Richmond Township, said Wednesday that Whitmer’s proposal has no chance of advancing in the House. Since he’s the speaker, he controls the agenda.
“In a situation where the prices of marijuana are going so low because the black market is taking over, you don’t see any enforcement on marijuana from Gov. Whitmer,” Hall said at a news conference. “Everybody in the world can get a license for this. You flooded this with supply, and now they want to tax it and push more stuff into the black market.”
Instead, House Republicans passed a $3.1 billion road-funding plan of their own last week that avoids new taxes but would require deep cuts elsewhere in the budget, including programs Whitmer has championed. Their plan shifts $2 billion annually from corporate income tax revenue to road repairs and ends state funding for economic development incentives. It also replaces the state’s 6% sales tax on gas with a dedicated 20-cents-per-gallon motor fuel tax.
The legislation passed mostly along party lines, but as many as seven Democrats, including House Speaker Joe Tate of Detroit, voted in favor of parts of the plan.
While the GOP package is unlikely to pass the Democratic-led Senate in its current form, it positions Republicans as defenders of a cannabis industry they once opposed.
In a brief statement to Metro Times, Rep. Timothy Beson, a Republican from Bay City, said Whitmer’s plan “is sloppy and I’m definitely not a fan.”
Before voters approved the sale of recreational marijuana in Michigan in 2018, many Republicans were opposed to it. That quickly changed when Republicans saw an opportunity to make money. Some of them became pro-weed lobbyists, and one, former state Rep. Rick Johnson, was sentenced to nearly five years in prison for accepting bribes when he led the marijuana licensing board from 2017 to 2019.
Even some Democrats are balking at Whitmer’s cannabis tax proposal. Rep. Julie Brixie, D-Meridian Township, praises Whitmer for coming up with ways to fix the roads but says boosting the tax on cannabis is not the answer.
Read more at Metro Times
