Last verified: April 2026
The April 2022 Vote
On April 5, 2022, the Detroit City Council approved the revised cannabis ordinance by an 8-1 vote, with Council Member Mary Waters casting the lone “no.” The ordinance took effect April 20, 2022.
The Three Structural Changes
1. Two Separate Tracks
Equity and non-equity applicants no longer compete head-to-head. Each licensing round reserves an equal number of licenses for each track. The two-track model survives Friedman’s “favoritism” finding because non-equity applicants compete only with other non-equity applicants — there is no longer a head-to-head competitive disadvantage based on residency.
2. State-Defined Equity, Not Detroit-Only Residency
“Equity applicant” tracks Michigan’s MRTMA social-equity definition: a person whose primary residence is in any community that has been disproportionately impacted by marijuana enforcement, where the community has:
- At least 20% poverty rate
- A marijuana conviction rate above the state median (660 per 100,000)
A 51%-owned business by such a person also qualifies. The shift from Detroit-residency to state-disproportionately-impacted-area was the constitutionally durable move: state-level criteria tied to provable harms (poverty rate, conviction rate) avoid the durational-residency exposure that doomed the 2020 ordinance under Lowe.
3. “Legacy Detroiter” Demoted to Support Category
Living in Detroit 10 of the last 30 years still qualifies a person as a Legacy Detroiter, but only for:
- Mentoring
- Financing assistance
- City-property purchase opportunities
- Access to the city’s Detroit Cannabis Project incubator
Legacy status is no longer a prerequisite for license eligibility itself. The demotion preserves the policy intent — supporting long-term Detroit residents in the cannabis economy — without the constitutional fragility of a residency-based licensing preference.
The Round 1 Awards
The first 33 retail licenses under the revised ordinance were awarded December 22, 2022:
- 20 social equity
- 13 non-equity
- 16 African-American-owned
- 9 woman-owned
- 19 Detroit-resident-majority-owned
- 18 Legacy Detroiter-owned
The Round 2 Awards
In November 2023, Round 2 awarded 37 additional licenses, including the first 5 consumption-lounge licenses (1 final, 4 provisional):
- 13 African-American-owned
- 5 woman-owned
- 21 Detroit-resident-majority-owned
Combined Round 1 + Round 2: ~70 retail/microbusiness licenses + 5 consumption-lounge licenses. Approximately 29 of the first 70 licensed adult-use retailers (~41%) are in African-American hands; 40 of 70 are Detroit-resident-majority-owned. By comparison, statewide Black ownership of recreational cannabis was 3.8% as of December 2020 — the figure Tate repeatedly cited to justify the equity program.
The Detroit Cannabis Project (HomeGrown Detroit)
The Detroit Cannabis Project, branded HomeGrown Detroit, is the city’s incubator program providing technical assistance, capital connections, and city-owned property to social-equity applicants. It is administered by the Office of Cannabis Affairs (OCA), led by Director Kim James, within the Civil Rights, Inclusion & Opportunity Department (CRIO). See Office of Cannabis Affairs.
Round 3 — Pending
As of April 2026, the city has not announced or opened a Round 3 application window despite the ordinance authorizing up to 160 total licenses. The Office of Cannabis Affairs has shifted focus to license renewals, hemp/Delta-8 enforcement, and advertising restrictions. Pre-positioning real estate and capital for a future Round 3 remains a strategic question for prospective applicants.
Council Member Mary Waters’s Lone “No” Vote
Council Member Mary Waters (At-Large) cast the lone “no” vote on the 2022 ordinance. Her stated concerns reflected ongoing skepticism about the revised structure’s ability to deliver equity outcomes; the subsequent Round 1 and Round 2 demographic data (~41% African-American-owned) substantially supported the structural choice, though Waters’s broader concerns about commercial-cannabis impacts on neighborhoods continue to inform Council debate.
The Ordinance’s Constitutional Durability
Detroit’s revised 2022 model — separate tracks, state-defined equity, Legacy as support — is one of the more constitutionally defensible templates available to U.S. cities pursuing cannabis equity. The model:
- Avoids municipal-residency thresholds entirely
- Ties equity criteria to provable harms (past arrest, income, residence in a state-defined disproportionately impacted area)
- Builds separate licensing tracks rather than scoring boosts within a single competitive pool
The model is consistent with the Ninth Circuit’s January 2026 Peridot Tree WA ruling and would survive a Supreme Court ruling that adopts the First/Second Circuit’s view (the revised ordinance does not rely on residency anchors that DCC analysis would strike). For policymakers in Atlanta, St. Louis, Memphis, New Orleans, Philadelphia, and Cleveland, the Detroit case study suggests the revised ordinance is a workable template.
For in-depth cannabis education, dosing guides, safety information, and research summaries, visit our partner site TryCannabis.org
Related on this site: The Detroit Equity Ordinance Fight, Lowe v. City of Detroit, James Tate.