A lawmaker in Michigan is taking another look at a regulation in the state, saying that an old cannabis conviction and clause surrounding “moral character,” meant to keep out people who were illegally selling cannabis, should not stop people from participating in the state’s growing adult-use cannabis industry.
Senator Jeff Irwin (D) introduced the newly-filed Senate bill, along with another measure that would legalize the possession and cultivation of certain psychedelics, last week. Irwin also says that his bill would align the state’s medical and recreational cannabis laws.
Under the adult-use legalization law, there is no exclusionary language surrounding moral character or previous cannabis convictions for licensed applicants, though that restriction is still present in the medical cannabis law.
“It would seem to be especially important in the cannabis space that we open the door to the legal cannabis industry to folks who are very experienced in the illicit cannabis space,” he said in a statement, adding that it’s not reasonable to expect people who sell cannabis to simply stop. He says part of this aim is ultimately to help minimize the cannabis black market.
“I don’t think we want to exclude anyone who’s ever participated in the marijuana industry before it was legal from participating now that it is legal because that’s going to make it even harder for us to build the legal space and diminish the illicit space,” he said.
SB 619 would remove language allowing the Marijuana Regulatory Agency (MRA) to deny applicants based on “integrity, moral character, and reputation,” and it would also add lines clarifying that people with cannabis felony or misdemeanor convictions are not automatically disqualified from the program, either.
The bill is cosponsored by Democratic Senators Sean McCann, Stephanie Shang and Sylvia Santana. While there is no guarantee as of yet he will be granted a committee hearing in the Republican-controlled legislature, Irwin is hoping to build bipartisan support, especially since members of both parties have previously moved forward in eliminating moral character clauses from other industries.
It’s a booming market that, in turn, must be set up for future success: just this past July, the state broke another one of its own records, with more than $171 million in cannabis transactions, according to data from a Michigan regulatory body released the following month. The prior month saw $107 million in recreational sales and $42 million in medical sales.
The state is also looking to the future in another way, with the introduction of a pair of research projects, funded by $20 million in tax revenue from Michigan’s recreational cannabis program, to analyze the effects of medical cannabis for military veterans. Both grants come from Michigan’s Veteran Marijuana Research Grant Program.
With cannabis now legal in the state, officials are also pursuing steps to make sure Michigan residents who legally consume cannabis have certain employment-related protections. The state attorney general filed a legal brief in August that argued workers who are fired from jobs for cannabis use outside of their workplace should still be eligible for unemployment benefits.
To add to the list of agenda items surrounding cannabis in the state, Michigan is also launching a new program to improve social equity in the state’s growing cannabis industry. The MRA launched the Joint Ventures Pathway Program to connect eligible social equity participants, and those seeking to become social equity participants, with adult-use (and potential adult-use) licensees and any businesses that wish to work with social equity participants interested in pursuing partnerships.
Irwin’s separate psychedelics legislation, filed at the same time, comes with Michigan’s movement in updating policy around entheogenic (or psychoactive, hallucinogenic) substances, boasting local chapters of the Decriminalize Nature group, pushing for their city councils to look into reforms on the substances.
