In July, executives of the JARS Cannabis dispensary chain hosted a campaign fundraiser for Michigan's Republican nominee for governor. About 100 people came, by one attendee's count. It brought in nearly $90,000.

At that fundraiser, according to a longtime marijuana advocate who was in the room, the candidate told the industry exactly what it wanted to hear about the new state tax on its product.

"He was clear as a bell: He wants to get rid of that 24% tax," Tim Beck told Bridge Michigan.

Weeks later, in mid-August, John James said it in public: he would "repeal or sharply reduce" Michigan's 24% wholesale marijuana tax.

What that tax was for

The 24% wholesale tax is not a stray line in the budget. It was a central piece of the bipartisan road funding deal Gov. Gretchen Whitmer signed last year — the deal meant to put $2 billion a year into fixing Michigan's roads.

The House Fiscal Agency projected the marijuana tax alone would bring in $420 million a year toward that.

It has not. State budget officials reported it produced just $73.4 million in its first six months, below even the revised estimates. James points to exactly that shortfall as his argument for killing it.

Here is what he has not done. James has not said how, or whether, he would replace the road money if the tax goes away. His campaign did not respond to Bridge Michigan's requests for comment.

So the plan, as it stands, is: remove a revenue source dedicated to roads, and leave the roads question blank.

The industry says the arrangement was clear

The people who would benefit are not being coy about it.

Robin Schneider, executive director of the Michigan Cannabis Industry Association, attended the JARS fundraiser. Her association gave James $1,000. She told Bridge that the James campaign came to her about the tax issue before the fundraiser.

"We didn't do anything," she told Bridge. "They made it clear that they support us."

Beck, a member of the association who owns no marijuana business himself, said he feels owners are "pretty united" around James.

Schneider also said her association reached out to the Democratic nominee, Jocelyn Benson, "repeatedly," and has not heard back. Benson has not taken a firm position, calling the tax a "new and emerging issue" and saying she wants to know where the money is going before making changes.

That contrast is the point. One candidate has not committed. The other committed at a fundraiser the industry organized for him, and then said it out loud.

He was against legalization before he was for its tax break

In 2018, Michigan voters legalized recreational marijuana with 56% of the vote. James was running for the U.S. Senate at the time, and he said he would vote against the proposal — while promising to respect the result if it passed.

Eight years later, he says "state government has a responsibility to respect" the voter-approved law while keeping products from children and enforcing the law against bad actors.

There is a version of that evolution that is just a politician learning. There is another version, and the industry group suing over the tax has articulated it: the group argues the wholesale tax violates the will of the 2018 voters. James has landed on the side of the argument that his donors are making in court.

This is the pattern

James' record on who gets heard is already documented here.

He took utility cash while Michigan electric bills kept going up. He says his data center priority is "frankly local control," but he voted three times in committee to bar states and towns from regulating AI for a decade. He attacked an opponent for getting rich in office while his own net worth grew by as much as 1,000% during his time in Congress.

The $90,000 fundraiser was a fraction of the nearly $1.2 million James raised from late July onward. That is the part worth remembering. It did not take much to get a public commitment on a $420 million tax.

Adding it up

Marijuana industry executives hosted a fundraiser for John James in July that raised nearly $90,000, and a participant says James told the room he wanted Michigan's 24% wholesale marijuana tax gone. In mid-August he publicly pledged to repeal or sharply reduce it. That tax was written into the bipartisan road funding deal and projected to raise $420 million a year for Michigan roads. James has not said how he would replace that money, and his campaign did not answer questions about it.

Source

Bridge Michigan, John James pitches marijuana tax repeal, courts industry donors. Photo: J. Scott Applewhite/Associated Press, via Bridge Michigan.