Detroit Will Allow Adult-Use Cannabis Sales in 2021

In late November, Detroit City Council formally approved a plan to allow adult-use cannabis sales within the city. Until then, the largest city in Michigan had joined the 1,400 or so municipalities that had opted out of an adult-use cannabis market approved by voters in 2018.

The new ordinance will give licensing priority to longtime residents who have lived in Detroit for 15,13 or 10 of the past 30 years (with other qualifying factors, such as living in a low-income household or holding a past cannabis conviction), according to the Detroit Free Press. Those residents will have the first crack at half of the 75 retail licenses.

Councilman James Tate has been out in front of this cause for the past year, insisting that a legal cannabis market represents an opportunity to broaden the scope of social equity in the city’s commercial landscape.

"This is an industry that is in its infancy in Detroit, and we have to make sure that we nurture it properly and make sure that it grows strong, not reckless, and is a bridge to generational wealth that has been out of reach for so many families in our city," he said in October.

Since the first day of adult-use sales, on Dec. 1, 2019, one year ago today, Michigan has recorded $439 million in cannabis sales (and $73 million in tax revenue).