Recreational cannabis legalization foes in Michigan prepping for 2018 campaign

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Opponents of recreational marijuana legalization in Michigan have formed two resistance campaigns to a ballot measure likely to go before voters next year.

The pro-marijuana campaign submitted signatures a week and a half ago to make the 2018 ballot and hasn’t yet been formally approved by the secretary of state, but opponents are waiting in the wings:

  • Healthy and Productive Michigan, an anti-MJ coalition, announced its formation this week, the Detroit Free Press reported.
  • The Committee to Keep Pot Out of Neighborhoods and Schools was founded in May. The group is funded by the Michigan Responsibility Council, a “group of business owners who want to get into the medical marijuana business,” according to the newspaper.

Grand Rapids political consultant Scott Greenlee, who leads Healthy and Productive Michigan, declined to identify the group’s financial backers.

He told the Free Press only that his supporters include “business, faith and law enforcement organizations.”

“We plan to be very aggressive to fight this,” Greenlee said, adding that coalition members have committed “significant financial resources.”

Josh Hovey, a spokesman for the Coalition to Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol, said the pro-MJ campaign anticipated organized political opposition for next year and are prepared for it, according to the Free Press.