A group of cannabis advocates is suing the state to get it to remove marijuana from the state’s list of controlled substances in its Public Health Code -- a move advocates say would bring an end to police raids.

Despite the passage of the adult-use marijuana law in Michigan in 2018, two laws legalizing medical marijuana and the addition of bureaucracy and state taxes on marijuana sales, the state’s Public Health Code treats marijuana like opioids, heroin, codeine, peyote and mushrooms.

“For 80 years they’ve been locking people up and taking their possessions and harassing and terrorizing us as citizens because we like to smoke weed,” said poet and activist John Sinclair Wednesday at the Cannabis Counsel office in Detroit. “I want to be part of every effort to completely remove the police from our lives regarding to marijuana. They’ve got nothing at all to do with marijuana.”

Sinclair is one of the plaintiffs on the lawsuit against the Michigan Board of Pharmacy and its chairwoman Nichole Cover, filed last week in the Michigan Court of Claims. The other plaintiffs include Dr. Christian Bogner, who researches the effects of cannabis to treat autism; Josey Scoggin, a medical marijuana patient; Paul Littler, a pharmacist; NORML of Michigan and the Michigan Medical Marijuana Association.

The lawsuit argues that Michigan laws recognize the medical benefits of marijuana, and yet the Michigan Board of Pharmacy continues to list marijuana as a Schedule 1 drug -- a designation that means it has no accepted medical benefits and has a high potential for abuse.

“The Michigan Department of Attorney General is in the process of reviewing and preparing a response to the complaint," according to a statement from spokeswoman Kelly Rossman-McKinney.

The “absurdity” of the legal conflict between the Medical Marihuana Facilities Licensing Act and the Public Health Code has to be addressed, said Michael Komorn, one of the attorneys behind the case.

“It’s intellectually dishonest,” Komorn said.

For the past year, state officials have allowed caregivers to grow marijuana at home and bring it to provisioning centers to sell to patients -- a practice that continues as there’s a shortage of licensed marijuana in the market.

“This is not a controlled substance,” Komorn said. “The idea that someone would be growing an opioid ... and bringing it to a pharmacy because they were running low on their meds is the scenario that would have to exist in order for marijuana to remain as a scheduled drug.”

Sinclair has a long history of advocacy in Michigan; his 1967 arrest over two joints sparked the first Hash Bash in Ann Arbor. The Michigan Supreme Court in 1972 noted in the opinion that overturned Sinclair’s conviction that “not only that there is no rational basis for classifying marijuana with the ‘hard narcotics’, but, also, that there is not even a rational basis for treating marijuana as a more dangerous drug than alcohol.”

Michigan’s Public Health Code was adopted in 1978, and mirrored much of the national rhetoric towards drugs, Komorn said.

The lawsuit also takes issue with Cover’s position overseeing both the Michigan Board of Pharmacy, where marijuana is considered illegal, and as a member of the Medical Marihuana Licensing Board, where medical marijuana is considered legal.

The Board of Pharmacy is responsible for overseeing pharmacy licenses and the manufacture and distribution of prescription drugs, as well as limiting or preventing the sale of drugs that don’t comply with state laws.

The Medical Marihuana Licensing Board is in charge of issuing licenses and overseeing regulations for the state’s newly regulated medical marijuana industry. It has come under fire for its pace and decisions.

Federally, marijuana remains listed as a Schedule 1 Controlled Substance and its use remains illegal. The U.S. Attorney General’s office has declined to prosecute states or businesses that have launched medical and recreational marijuana programs. President Donald Trump’s nominee for attorney general, Bill Barr, has said he’ll continue that approach -- but believes overarching change is needed.

-- Amy Biolchini is the marijuana beat reporter for MLive. Contact her with questions, tips or comments at abiolch1@mlive.com. Read more from MLive about medical and recreational marijuana.