Kathleen Gray

Detroit Free Press Lansing Bureau

LANSING — Marijuana would be legalized for recreational uses and taxed at a rate of 16% under petition language that was turned in to the Secretary of State on Friday.

If the petition language is approved by the state Board of Canvassers, the group pushing the initiative — the Coalition to Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol — will have 180 days to collect 252,523 signatures from valid registered voters in Michigan. In order to get a cushion to account for signatures that might be thrown out, the group is setting a goal of gathering 350,000 signatures.

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That’s a task that will take money, said Josh Hovey, a spokesman for the Coalition. The group hopes to raise between $8 million and $10 million to both pay people to gather the signatures needed to get on the ballot and to wage a campaign to get the measure passed in November 2018.

“Prohibition is a failed big government program,” said former state Rep. Jeff Irwin, D-Ann Arbor, who is the political director of the coalition. “We have 20,000 people arrested every year in Michigan. And we’re now going to be in a position to give our citizens a choice to end that.”

The ballot proposal would:

Tax marijuana sales at a rate of a 10% excise tax at the retail level as well as the 6% sales tax. The estimated revenues from the taxes are at least $100 million and perhaps as high as $200 million, Hovey said.

Split those revenues with 35% going to K-12 education, 35% to roads, 15% to the communities that allow marijuana businesses in their communities and 15% to counties where marijuana business are located.

Allow communities to decide whether they’ll allow marijuana businesses.

Restrict purchases of marijuana for recreational purposes to 2.5 ounces, but allow individuals to keep up to 10 ounces of marijuana in their homes.

Allow the Michigan Department of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs — and not the politically appointed licensing board that will oversee medical marijuana — to regulate and license marijuana businesses, ranging from growers, transporters, testers and dispensaries.

The proposal sets up three classes of marijuana growers: those who can grow up to 100 plants, 500 plants and 2,000 plants.

The coalition will have an advantage this year over previous efforts to get the issue on the ballot. The national Marijuana Policy Project, which has gotten involved in several other states where marijuana legalization has succeeded, has jumped into Michigan’s ballot drive. So far eight states and the District of Columbia have legalized recreational marijuana, while 29 states have legalized some form of medical marijuana use.

The last group to try and get the issue on the 2016 ballot — MiLegalize — gathered more than 350,000 signatures, but not within the 180-day time frame.

MiLegalize, as well as the Michigan chapter of the National Organization for Marijuana Legalization or NORML, have signed on to the latest effort and will bring its army of volunteers to the push to free the weed. And while law enforcement hasn’t specifically come out and officially opposed the proposal yet, those groups aren’t expected to support it.

Contact Kathleen Gray: 313-223-4430 or kgray99@freepress.com. Follow her on Twitter @michpoligal.