GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. - Marijuana has become big business in the United States. Recreational use is legal in nine states, including California, Nevada and Colorado. Pot shops are generating millions of dollars in tax revenues for those states.
This fall, a measure that could appear on the November ballot would make recreational pot use legal in Michigan. That could bring similar business to our state. Add to that, Michigan's new effort to license medical marijuana dispensaries and the revenue it could bring to the state.
Bruce Barcott is the Deputy Editor for Leafly.com, one of the largest cannabis information sources online. Canna Communication brought Barcott to Grand Rapids to speak about Everyday Wisdom form an Extraordinary Industry: Ten Hard-Learned Business Lessons from the First Year of Legal Marijuana.
"I hadn't touched cannabis since college; it wasn't my thing. I was a late 40s father of two teenagers. I had a lot of concerns," Barcott said.
That all changed after speaking to a friend.
"She said, she told me 'look, nobody cares what you think about pot, this measure is about social justice,'" Barcott said.
On Nov. 6, 2012, the green rush began in Washington.
"I wondered, 'Oh my God what have we just done,'" Barcott said.
He was riddled with fear.
"I had a lot of anxiety about teenagers having increased access to cannabis, that hasn't happened. In fact, we've seen teen use hold steady and now start to decline in Washington state. I was worried about drugged drivers on the road, [but] that hasn't happened. I was worried about having to smell cannabis all over the place in the sidewalks of Seattle and that hasn't happened," Barcott said.
The world as he knew it was changing.
"What we saw in Seattle and in Denver is that those two cities have continued to boom economically. They're just growing like gangbusters," Barcott said.
Michigan could be the next one, come November.
"They look around at other cities, they see the walls haven't fallen—that society has continued to go on as it had," Barcott said.
Although it's not a one size fits all measure, Barcott is hopeful.
"What works in California isn't the same thing that's going to work in Washington, isn't the same thing that's going to work in Michigan," Barcott said. "What I've seen of your ballot measure, it allows you to do that. It allows Michiganders to decide how they want to handle this."
If green gets the green light in Michigan, Barcott said the opportunities would be endless.
"[There's] a chance for a number of entrepreneurs to come into the industry and do this in a very legal way to start up businesses. There's a chance for farmers to add this to a crop to their rotation, and there's a chance for both state and local municipalities that there's some tax money from this," Barcott said.
The opposition to marijuana is growing. The organization, Smart Approaches to Marijuana of Virginia, donated $150,000 to the Healthy and Productive Michigan committee to fight the potential 2018 ballot proposal. Organizers said they'll continue to donate more towards the opposition and help with fundraising efforts in Michigan.
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