Pubdate: Tue, 29 Mar 2016
Source: Detroit Free Press (MI)
Copyright: 2016 Detroit Free Press
Contact: http://www.freep.com/article/99999999/opinion04/50926009
Website: http://www.freep.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/125
Author: Bill Laitner

MICHIGAN VOTERS WOULD OK LEGAL POT, POLL SAYS

A new survey of state residents likely to vote this fall found that a 
clear 53% majority of Michiganders would just say yes to legalizing 
and taxing marijuana.

The survey's result was no surprise to groups hoping to gather 
253,000 signatures in Michigan to get a marijuana measure on November ballots.

"Support for legalizing marijuana continues to increase here at a 
rate of at least 2% per year - that's what we've been tracking in 
Michigan, and it seems to be roughly the same across the country," 
said Detroit lawyer Matt Abel, a long-time supporter of legal pot.

"To me, this poll actually under-represents the real number of people 
who truly would vote for legalization because some people just don't 
want to admit how they feel to a pollster," said Abel, the executive 
director of Michigan NORML - the National Organization for the Reform 
of Marijuana Laws. Michigan NORML commissioned the new poll.

"We've seen this in Michigan," Abel said, pointing out that the 2008 
ballot proposal to legalize medical marijuana passed with 63% 
support, despite polls showing "support only in the mid-50s."

The latest poll followed a survey in 2014 that gave 50% support to a 
similar question and one in 2013 that showed 47% support, said Bernie 
Porn, president of the prominent Lansing-based polling firm EPIC-MRA, 
which conducted each of the three polls.

Each of the representative telephone surveys by live callers reached 
600 people around the state, Porn said. All of the counties in 
Michigan contributed to the sample in the same proportion as they do 
in a presidential election, he said.

Survey respondents were asked whether they supported a ballot 
proposal "if there are enough valid petition signatures collected in 
the coming months." They were then read a four-sentence summary of 
the lengthy language that supporters have proposed.

In brief, the ballot proposal would allow Michiganders 21 years or 
older to grow, possess and sell marijuana, let state and local 
governments pass regulations and impose up to a 10% tax on 
non-medical pot with funding earmarked for education, road repairs 
and local governments. The lengthy proposal would also legalize the 
statewide cultivation of industrial hemp, a crop that once supplied 
raw material for everything from textiles to rope, but which has been 
banned during the nation's war on drugs because the hemp plant is 
related to marijuana.

The latest poll results were nowhere more welcome than at the Lansing 
law office of Jeffrey Hank, chairman of MiLegalize - a statewide 
group that is collecting petition signatures to put the legalization 
measure on fall ballots. The group has collected about 250,000 
signatures, Hank said, but it needs as many as 300,000 by the state's 
June 1 deadline to be assured of submitting the required 253,000 
valid ones to state election officials.

"This poll will hopefully help MiLegalize gain support," Hank said. 
"This answers the question from some of our funders - if you get it 
on the ballot, will it pass?" Buy Photo

The percentage of voters in favor of legalizing marijuana has 
increased in recent polls. (Photo: Martha Thierry/Detroit Free Press)

MiLegalize urgently needs financial support to hire more petition 
circulators because the group is in danger of failing to meet the 
180-day limit for gathering signatures that previous ballot campaigns 
have had to meet. But Hank said he might challenge that limit in 
court if the State Board of Canvassers fails to allow petition groups 
to prove that signatures they gathered outside the 180-day window are valid.

If the proposal fails to make the ballot, it would probably spell the 
end of what is apparently the best-funded and best-organized effort 
to put a cannabis question on state ballots this year. Two other 
groups dropped their efforts last fall. A fourth, Midland-based 
Abrogate Prohibition, is seeking to amend the state constitution - an 
even higher bar that requires collecting 315,000 signatures by July 
1, according to state election law.

John Pirich, a Lansing lawyer and veteran constitutional law expert, 
testified in February and again last month before the state Board of 
Canvassers against any move to stretch the 180-day limit, Pirich said 
last month.

"When the framers of the constitution came up with this process, it 
was never meant to be easy. It's supposed to be a high bar," he said.

Around the nation, similar efforts by those who want to legalize and 
regulate marijuana for adult use are expected to put measures on 
November ballots in Arizona, California and Massachusetts, with one 
in Nevada already qualified for fall ballots, according to the 
nonprofit Marijuana Policy Project, a Washington, D.C., group that 
advocates legalization.

A measure to allow medical marijuana will be on Florida ballots, and 
petition drives on behalf of medical pot are underway in Arkansas 
and, soon, in Ohio, said Mason Tvert, spokesman for the Marijuana 
Policy Project.

"Just about every state seems to be experiencing some growth in 
support for ending prohibition" of marijuana, Tvert said.

Opponents have said that legalizing marijuana will unleash an 
addictive drug, although research is mixed as to how many Americans 
might be susceptible to marijuana addiction.

"We oppose legalization outright, although we don't think people 
should go to prison for marijuana," said Jeffrey Zinsmeister, 
executive vice president of SAM - Smart Alternatives to Marijuana, a 
nonprofit group in Alexandria, Va.

"We see legalization as tantamount to commercialization of an 
addictive product. It will be mainly geared to heavy users (and) to 
hooking minors, the same way that alcohol and tobacco are marketed," 
Zinsmeister said.

A federal task force that studied the consequences of legalizing 
marijuana in Washington State and reported its findings March 10 
found that there were "200 more recreational marijuana businesses 
than Starbucks" in the home state of the coffee shop chain, Zinsmeister said.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom