by Michigan House Speaker Matt Hall (R-Richland Township) on the floor of the house. October 1, 2025 | Photo by Ben Solis/Michigan Advance
The leader of the House of Representatives of Michigan said on Thursday that he expects his counterpart to the Senate to provide the voices needed to give a proposed 24% wholesale tax on marijuana, and if not, he says that the budget agreement would fall apart with the seams.
Such a scenario would also lead to a complete government of Michigan being closed, while Huispreker Matt Hall repeated that there will be no other continuation budget to keep the lights if the deal between him mediated, Senate majority leader Winnie Brinks and Gov. Gretchen Whitmer falls apart.
“This was a source of income that Winnie Brinks offered private,” said Hall, on Thursday with reporters. “We took them for their suggestion from Marijuana, and we all concluded a deal about the budget. Brinks would never close that deal if they can’t perform.”
It was now on the Senate to keep their end of the deal of the road, Hall added.
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A message sought comments about the state of the marijuana tax from the Brinks office was not returned at the time of publication
The tax has the opposition of some members of the house and the Senate, although Hall said the entire week that the plan was proposed by Brinks. The tax explained in House Bill 4951 was initiated in the lower room, but sponsored by Rep. Samantha Steckoff (D-Farmington Hills).
That is still to be seen, given that at least one Democrat – Senator Jeff Irwin of Ann Arbor – said he would not vote for the measure as it is.
The stakeholders of the Michigan Cannabis industry brought on Tuesday in Lansing, lobbying by legislators and collect in the hope that the legislative power would either run away from its proposed tax to finance roads or change the bill to save the tax, but at a much tasty rate.
The proponents of the cannabis industry and employees who argue for the next tax year at a proposed 24% wholesale tax on marijuana. September 30, 2025 | Photo by Ben Solis/Michigan Advance
On Tuesday, the legislators worked until late in the evening to move implementation bills that would set up a final budget in the coming days. During that session, it was late in the evening that a change in the proposed tax came to the fore in the session database of the Senate that would lower the proposed tax to only 20%.
The change of the Bill 4951 house, proposed by the state of Senator Stephanie Chang (D-Detroit), would also bind the bill to the proposed tax on various tobacco products and levy a tax on e-cigarettes- Senate Bill 582.
If it were to get a grip, it could give some comfort to leaders of the cannabis industry who said that the tax in the current proposed form would lead to a reduction of industry and job losses, but some opponents of the tax say that the number is still too high and would not get their voices.
Senate Bill 582 is in accordance with a bill that she offered during the previous session session that supplied another 75 mills on the tax on cigarettes, causing the wholesale tax to cigars, non-circigarette smoking tobacco, smokeless tobacco and each tobacco product to 57%.
In an interview with Michigan Advance, Chang said that the amendment was a concept of a plan, and that she just threw it away to see what the appetite was. She was not convinced that it would be admitted or passed, even if so.
Two legislators of the house said during an anti-Marihuana tax rally on Tuesday that they worked behind the scenes to lower that rate. Chang was asked if she talked to her colleagues about the amendment, especially on the home side, but she said she hadn’t done that.
Irwin, who has been a strong critic of the proposed marijuana load of the Republican house, said that the reduction in the rate was an improvement, but not enough to bring it on board.
“I think it would still dismiss many people from the legal market, still many people from other states who come here, discourage because our prices are forward,” Irwin said. “And if our prices are no longer attractive for customers in Michigan or from other states, we will lose a lot of those customers.”
Protesters who oppose a plan to increase income for roads by implementing a 24% wholesale tax on marijuana -to implement the Capitol Rotunda. September 30, 2025 | Photo by Kyle Davidson/Michigan Advance
This is not the time to levy extra taxes on cannabis, argued Irwin, and noted that there is still a black market for the product, and people to that market will lead to a decrease in turnover. That was the sentiment that was shared by lawyers in the industry during the rally on Tuesday.
Irwin also argued that legislators should respect the distribution model for cannabis taxes that voters approved when they voted to legalize the medicine in 2018.
“If we are going to change that, we should definitely have a majority of three quarters to change it as demanded by Michigan’s constitution,” Irwin said.
Yet Hall thought the deal would be at 24%. He was convinced that he thought that the initially proposed tax of 32% on marijuana was too high and that the house could bring down that number. Hall also wondered if the tax consumption habits would change, which would ultimately influence the income that the state could achieve. Chang would not discuss her reasoning behind the amendment, except that it was another option.
When asked if the house would agree with the amendment if it would pass somehow, Hall was without obligation and said again that they had a deal.
“If they try to change the conditions of that deal, we would strip it and we would send it the other way, because there are hundreds of things that we can negotiate in this deal, but then the government would close,” Hall said.
Michigan Advance reporter Kyle Davidson has contributed to this story.
