There won’t be any medical marijuana dispensaries in downtown Hillsdale, at least not anytime in the near future.
The Hillsdale City Council decided in a 6-0 vote (with two council members absent) to draft a motion to opt out of Michigan state provisions that allow individual cities to permit medical marijuana dispensaries and growing facilities at a meeting on Monday. This decision came following a public discussion of the topic at the previous council meeting, in which 76 percent of Hillsdale residents who spoke urged council to opt out of the provisions, according to a poll taken by Councilman Patrick Flannery.
Because the possession and distribution of marijuana is still a federal crime, the council has decided not to put local law enforcement at odds with federal law by opening the city to the drug, Mayor Scott Sessions said.
“If you opt in, it’s almost impossible to get out,” he said. “If we continue to opt out, we can always opt in.”
According to a report from the Detroit Free Press, the provisions passed by the state legislature last year will regulate and tax the industry in Michigan by creating five categories of licenses — those for growers who can produce up to 1,500 plants, processors, transporters, testing facilities, and dispensaries. The dispensaries will be taxed 3 percent on their gross receipts, and that money will go back to the state and local communities.
Representatives from Michigan State University came to Hillsdale earlier this year to provide training to the council and city employees on how to proceed if the city should approve the new provisions at this time.
Councilman Bill Zeiser said it was these training sessions that convinced him that the city would not be able to handle the administrative difficulties in regulating receipts and licenses for dispensaries that the new provisions would impose.
“I do not want to involve the city in a headache like that,” he said. “I think the way things are heading, we’ll probably have recreational marijuana within the next few years anyway, but that’s not for us to decide.”
Councilman Bruce Sharp echoed the rest of the council, saying the issue is best looked at when the marijuana issue is settled nationally.
“Opting out doesn’t mean we can’t look at it in the future,” he said.
