PolitCannabis Excise Taxes — A Bonanza For Small Towns

July 26, 2024

Jack R. Noel

This news is certainly not a hard-to-get real insight but it bears revealing nevertheless.

An article on small towns in Michigan reports that business insiders were able to foresee the sudden shrinkage in marijuana shops from 9 to four shops in just the last couple of years.

This was and is due to the simple fact that the population of Kent County is nearly 650,000 but the population is centered in nearby Grand Rapids.

Even so, Lowell Michigan could never support nine marijuana shops. For comparison, Ann Arbor Michigan is a university town with 25,000 U of M Students in town most of the year, some stay all year long. Ann Arbor can support a marijuana shop every three streets and has many streets.

But the real point I’m making is that Michigan’s excise tax funds the summer-long street repair and improvement now going on in Ann Arbor. There is enough left over to support services in other small towns in Washtenaw County which traditionally tops employment statistics in Michigan. Once it was the taxes and fees connected with the auto industry but now marijuana tops the fundraising list for positive gain taxation. Who would have guessed this in 1970? Surely no conservative or libertarian.