“I am here today at the MILegalize rally because I have worked for the last four years to try to convince the Michigan Legislature to enact solid common sense civil asset forfeiture reforms,” Gholson said.

Other representatives at the rally included members of Michigan’s chapter of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws.

Jeffrey Hank, executive director of MILegalize, said fully legalizing marijuana in Michigan would create 50,000 jobs, rebuild roads and fund schools. Hank said MILegalize came up with the statistics based on Michigan’s marketing size and the occupational use licensing numbers from Colorado, a state roughly half Michigan’s population size, that fully legalized cannabis for both medicinal and recreational drug use in 2014. 

“Projections are based on what Michigan could be,” Hank said.

Currently, 24 states and Washington, D.C., including Michigan, have legalized cannabis for medical use. The Michigan Medical Marihuana Act, also known as Proposal 1, went into effect in 2008. However, access to medical marijuana is limited to patients obtaining it from an approved caregiver who can serve up to five patients at a time, or growing the plant on their own.

State Representative Jeff Irwin, D-Ann Arbor, is a longtime supporter of ending cannabis prohibition. Recently, he introduced House Bill No. 4877 to decriminalize marijuana in the Michigan House of Representatives.

“Cannabis prohibition is a huge failure. It’s not working and it’s incredibly costly," Irwin said. “(Criminalizing marijuana use) is an incredibly wasteful and unproductive enterprise. Cannabis prohibition is un-American.”

The event was also a general rally for social justice in Michigan, including Flint and Detroit.

“We represent just the common people,” Hank said. “We’re not a special interests group. We want to fix Marijuana laws but we also want to do other good things like put money into roads, put money into schools and create jobs. Michigan is in a hurtful moment right now. We have Flint. We have Detroit Public Schools. All these things, right? We’re the feel good story of the year in Michigan. We’re not the sex scandals and all the corruption and all this other crap. We are here to help the people.”

MILegalize said on its website it aims to put full fair marijuana legalization on the November 2016 ballot. The campaign is already past its minimum requirement of 253,000 signatures to be included on the ballot, but will continue to gather more signatures before June 1.