A little more than three years ago, 3,006,820 Michigan voters said "yes" to legalizing medical marijuana. That was 63 percent of the vote to the "no" side's 37 percent.

For the first two years, all was relatively quiet. Some municipalities understandably passed moratoriums on dispensaries that popped up like weeds.

It was clear some tweaks were needed to the broad law, but the GOP-controlled Senate wanted no part of it. Attorney General Mike Cox, a shrewd politician if I've ever seen one, didn't make a federal case out of the issue, either.

All that changed when Michiganders voted Bill Schuette in as Cox's successor in 2010 by a 9-point margin. He had chaired the '08 "no" campaign, which helped give then-Appeals Court judge some much-need visibility to go for AG. Schuette also had to admit on

Off the Record

that he inhaled, something that clearly irked him.

Since taking office, Schuette, who makes Cox look camera shy, has waged what appears to be a personal vendetta against the '08 law, finding every which way to curb it and lock folks up.

which I'm sure earned him a call from Schuette's communications team:

Schuette stands proudly among the minority of Michiganders who opposed the MMA and continue to lobby for its repeal. Nothing wrong with that. But the AG has also exploited his office to target medical marijuana users and providers -- precisely the people Michigan voters sought to protect from criminal prosecution when they adopted the MMA. That's a flagrant abuse of authority -- one that undermines respect for the law in general, not just the statute Schuette seeks to subvert.

I don't smoke pot. I'm not a fan of the pot shops that dot my city here in Lansing. Some reasonable changes to tighten up the law make sense. Hell, Sen. Rick Jones (R-Grand Ledge) wants to do the very un-Republican thing of taxing the stuff. That's interesting, I suppose.

But 3,006,820 Michiganders decided to legalize medical marijuana in 2008. Doubt any of them realized then that in a few years, Bill Schuette's "no" vote would be the only one that counted.