by Curt Kovener
Two years ago, Michigan legalized marijuana; Indiana still has not and the legislature won’t even bring a bill to legalize the plant up for a vote.
So while Indiana tries to maintain the image of a pious, Christian conservative state, the marijuana boom has brought over 500 jobs, new life to storefronts along the northern Hoosier border in southern Michigan.
Cannabis-industry investors were in the market for suitable locations for retail outlets, as well as grow and processing plants. They were greeted by officials in southwest Michigan who were willing to listen — and were highly motivated to entertain the business proposals. City leaders say the cannabis industry has packed more than a decade’s worth of redevelopment into the span of a couple of years, and they’re looking at the prospect of even more projects in the coming year.
Hoosier elected leaders should consider:
•The total investment in buildings and equipment in just two southern Michigan cities exceeded $50 million in the past two years, and the cities say they’ve gained about 250 new jobs each
•New taxes collected by the state from the marijuana businesses have resulted in tens of thousands of dollars for the individual communities, which also collect annual fees for the licenses. This past March, the Michigan Department of the Treasury announced it was distributing $10 million to more than 100 municipalities and counties as part of the taxes collected on recreational marijuana sold in the state, while $23.2 million was divided evenly between K-12 education and the state’s transportation fund
•In Michigan, cannabis growers and processors are moving into shuttered factories. Dispensaries and boutique shops selling marijuana have located and rejuvenated downtown. Pause while reading here to consider the downtowns of Crothersville, Austin, Seymour, and the courthouse squares in Scottsburg & Brownstown where there a numerous empty storefronts.
Michigan has learned that dispensaries for medical marijuana located in the downtown area are revitalizing several buildings in the city’s core and creating hope among city leaders that more restaurants and amenities will follow. The communities that opted out of the marijuana business, seeing what is happening in their neighboring communities quickly changed course.
Then there is the increased tourism that has resulted from the recreational boutique shops. Those owners say they’re bringing in customers from Indiana, Ohio and Kentucky where cannabis is illegal or restricted to medical use.
While Indiana has its touristy wine trails and Kentucky has its famed bourbon trail, those two states legislators’ have decried “Pot is Not”. Unlike manufacturers looking for new locations, none of the marijuana-related operators have sought or received tax breaks or other incentives to locate in southwest Michigan.
Existing business owners who have been struggling in downtowns say they’ve benefited from the increased foot traffic that local marijuana shops have generated. New customers from within state as well as Indiana and Kentucky have been drawn to Michigan’s small towns. And, like the touristy arts & crafts mecca of Nashville in nearby Brown County, they walk, they tour, they buy from a variety of businesses.
And Indiana is not only missing the additional tax revenue marijuana is generating in Michigan, it is actually forcing Indiana to spend more tax dollars to police tourists coming back across the Michigan border. While doubting Thomas’s and conspiracy theorists wonder if the cannabis boom continue or is a flash in the pan, officials believe the jobs and investments will continue to rise in coming years as the cannabis market develops further in southern Michigan.
Some Hoosier history: Indiana’s constitutional convention of 1851 approved an amendment which prevented the authorization of any lottery inside the borders of the Hoosier state. But after being approved in two legislative sessions, the matter of abolishing that constitutional amendment was sent to the voters in 1988 where 62% approved the constitutional amendment lifting the ban.
And the legislature in 1989 authorized a state lottery along with pari-mutual betting on horse races. That gave us the Hoosier Lottery. Then came the riverboat casinos which attracted visitors to Indiana from Kentucky, Ohio, Michigan and Illinois and those out-of-state gamblers added greatly to the Indiana tax coffers.
Now that Ohio, Michigan, and Illinois have passed their own gambling legislation, many of those out-of-state tourists are foregoing traveling and spending their money at home. Thus, the thriving gambling tax revenue which was Indiana’s alone, has been diluted.
But with present day Ohio, Illinois and Michigan approving either medical or recreational marijuana sales, pious Indiana is left behind in approving another financing avenue to fund government, schools, teacher pay increases, and infrastructure improvements.
(Ed Semmler of the South Bend Tribune contributed to this column.)