Yes It Is, It’s True: Cannabis vote will be in November ’18

I hereby offer my humble, but sincere apologies to the Watson Township Board and Planning Commission. I was wrong, and you were right.

I publicly but incorrectly stated Wednesday and Thursday that the state-wide referendum on legalizing marijuana and regulating it like alcohol would be placed on the ballot for election would be in May. It won’t. It’ll be in November.

To paraphrase Rush Limbaugh, that pioneer of fake news, I wasn’t making this up. When I first read that more than enough signatures had been collected to place the issue on the ballot in 2018, I noticed the account said it would be in May. I was taken aback, thinking that advocates would want to have the vote in November.

Perhaps it matters more to Watson Township than others in the northeast quadrant of Allegan County because it is the only municipality in this region that has expressed willingness to consider an ordinance permitting facilities that grow, process, test, transport and dispense medical marijuana.

The recreational marijuana referendum is significant because it follows the Medical Marijuana Act approved by 63% of voters statewide in 2008. It also follows a state law approved by the Michigan Legislature and signed by Gov. Rick Snyder in the fall of 2016, in which medical marijuana dispensaries are permitted if local governments say so.

State government and many local governments consistently have fought legalization and have discouraged even legal use by severely regulating it and even penalizing it. Most of all, the roadblocks thrown in front of people who want to use, grow and provide medical marijuana have made it difficult for them to do it.

Businesses are allowed to fire employees who legally use marijuana as medicine. Drug warrior raids too often have been conducted against providers who may have violated penny-ante regulations. It seems as though government stands behind the 46-year failed War on Drugs and it continues to stigmatize pot use in the same way as 80 years ago in the heyday of “Reefer Madness.”

The vast majority of political observers predict the marijuana legalization ballot issue will be passed. This proves once again that our legislators are doing the bidding of their donors (Big Pharma, the alcohol industry, drug warriors and the illegal drug industry) rather than of their constituents.

All the polling I’ve seen about fireworks, assisted suicide and now even gerrymandering has shown our lawmakers are on the wrong side in the court of public opinion. Again, it proves that our political system is legalized bribery, in which those who have big bucks can tell our men and women in Lansing what to bring to the table and how to vote on it.

But in the meantime, I still apologize for getting the wrong date. But I still wonder when the people will rise up in righteous indignation to throw the rascals out of office and tell them, “I’m mad as hell, and I’m not going to take it any more.”