By Ben Horner
Politicians are ramping up fundraising efforts in Michigan this summer as covid restrictions are lifted. Many medical marijuana activists in the state are questioning whether the various factions of cannabis business associations are using this cycle to make their move to attack home cultivation and gain market share.
MRA, The Michigan Marijuana Regulatory Agency, showed potentially conflicting policy actions that have medical marijuana caregivers alarmed. An employment seminar for LUME was released on an MRA bulletin, which makes one wonder why the company that is owned by the owner of Belle Tire is getting this preferential treatment from Brisbo, the agency’s director. Then Brisbo released an advisory done with the help of DTE electric, warning home growers of the dangers of using too much power on their grows, and handed it out at Canna Con in Detroit. Then finally MRA lists new topics for a MRA training seminar that includes instructions on how to snitch on unlicensed marijuana facilities and “illicit marijuana activity”. But in a most recent conversation with Rick Thompson, Brisbo says his agency is not after caregivers right now, just Delta 8 and the Native American unlicensed weed stores. Rick avoids asking the tough questions regarding the MRA’s recent threatening actions regarding caregivers as mentioned previously.
In Lansing, without input from the 30k Michigan medical marijuana caregivers, Robin Schneider under the MiCIA, along with Steve Linder under the MCMA, and SSDP supported definition changes of marijuana in four of our Michigan cannabis laws, including the MMMA of 2008. Billed as a way to streamline the four laws that legalize cannabis in Michigan this was presented as a nothing burger by Ms. Schneider and friends. On the same day the bills passed with by-partisan support the MiCIA and friends pledge not to change the MMA.
Team red, which includes the largest cannabis companies in Michigan, make no bones that they want the caregivers gone. In a recent Anderson study commissioned by the MCMA, the cannabis consumption of Michiganders is analyzed. The study suggests that two-thirds of weed smoked, dabbed, eaten or absorbed is produced by the “illicit market” and that it’s just not safe for consumers.
On the move, team blue (MiCIA, SSDP, ASA, and several other cannabis groups) start fundraising for Democratic candidates like Dana Nessel and Jeff Irwin. Consequential to their ability to compete with team red, these groups need to get their supporters in Lansing reelected next year. And the battle for who controls cannabis ramps up. Thus, the fundraising campaigns have started.
Rick Thompson and Jamie Lowell, proclaimed cannabis activists, hijack a grassroots effort to form a boycott against the MCMA, who is their direct competition and adversaries in the cannabis space. This is similar to how they hijacked the legalization movement in Michigan to start the failed MI Legalize campaign in 2015 which eventually failed, and at the same time distracted activists and marijuana caregivers from the hijacking of the MMFLA, and the removing of caregivers from the supply chain of dispensaries despite the fact that dispensaries used caregiver supplies for all the years prior to the licensing of cannabis facilities, and for almost a year after under the emergency rules. Where was Robin Schneider? Silently her lobbying group allowed the caregivers to be written out.
Rick and Jamie insist there is nothing to see here when it comes to the marijuana definition changes. They urged various lawyers to come out to dispel the growing concerns of caregivers around Michigan when it comes to potentially harmful legislation and direct activists to stay focused on their local communities. No lawyers chimed in to aid their argument. Meanwhile they work diligently to unify the cannabis community. Old time activists that have seen how these two operate are disillusioned.
”With Rick Thompson it’s all about his ego. He wants to be a journalist so bad, but he has little insight and is ridiculously partisan.” One activist explains.
Another said this, “For the record. My ire is not pointed at Legislature, or even Snakes like Irwin, Thompson and Lowell. A snake will always be a snake, even when it sheds it’s skin and looks all needo (neato) and shit….”
“Fuck Tick Rhompson and Lamie Jowell. Until people are ready to TAKE PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY and get their asses off the couch en mass, it is what it is, and will continue to be.”
