The Michigan Department of Treasury announced that nearly $100 million in payments are now being dished out to 302 local entities and tribes – revenue from the marijuana taxes that were collected in Fiscal Year 2024.
108 cities, 36 villages, 80 townships, 74 counties, and 4 tribes will be getting hooked on this tax money.
Distributed over so many places, marijuana is hardly the financial panacea that pot activists always claimed. In their sales pitch to legalize the drug, activists promised that taxing weed would solve the government’s financial problems. Gretchen Whitmer herself just pitched raising taxes on marijuana to raise money for roads.
In fact, the marijuana money is not nearly enough to make a dent in anyone’s budget problems – Flint will be receiving just $640,000, for example – but it’s just enough to get these governments hooked on the money.
The state’s Marihuana Regulation Fund also has over $331 million for the 2024 fiscal year. This is divided among various priorities: more than $116 million goes to the School Aid Fund for K‑12 indoctrination and another $116 million is earmarked for the Michigan Transportation Fund.
This is not remotely enough to fund schools or roads, but it’s just enough to make the government dependent on the money to make the government a partner in the drug dealing industry.
