EDITOR:

i spoke briefly at the town hall on Delta County’s views on supporting the marijuana industry coming to Escanaba and creating hundreds of jobs for lower income families.

i am concerned that the only members that are going to get rich off of this industry are community leaders who are waiting for a firm to come in and receive tax breaks to set up facilities. A better plan would to be openly supportive of local growers and an investment into a medical marijuana testing facility. We know there will be regulation for public sale, and we know that a testing facility is going to be mandatory. Investing in that will open the door for local growers, bakers and dispensaries to open and provide safe, quality product to responsible adults and medical patients who rely on it.

I am personally tired of seeing outside companies coming in and taking opportunity from local low income families who have been in the system for marijuana, and do not have the means or the credit to obtain a small business loan on the ground floor of a newly legal billion dollar industry.

i have heard the town council’s opinion and its clear they are not educated in the realities of the marijuana industry and i feel that medical patients aren’t being represented in this decision. In two years, who in this town is going to add to their wealth more when its up and running. i doubt it will be anyone who is currently at the bottom financially.

Rayno K. Tulppo

Wells