The Trump administration issued an executive order reclassifying marijuana as a Schedule III controlled substance. This change doesn’t legalize the drug on the federal level but could mean significant tax savings for Michigan cannabis businesses.

Cannabis businesses are currently taxed on gross income and cannot deduct operating expenses like other companies ordinarily do. Changing the classification could help smaller businesses that operate without a lot of resources.

There are concerns from leaders in the cannabis industry about federal regulations that might follow this move — including taxes. The Trump administration announced that this move was to recognize legitimate medical use and expand medical marijuana and cannabis research for the medical community.

Additional headlines for Dec. 19, 2025

Food vouchers expire Dec. 31

Shoppers have until Wednesday, Dec. 31 to use their Double Up Food Bonus Bucks vouchers. The statewide program expanded during the government shutdown when SNAP benefit recipients were under threat and families didn’t know if they would lose their ability to purchase food.

Run through the Fair Food Network, the program matches SNAP benefits used to buy up to $40 in fresh and frozen fruits and vegetables at partnering farmer markets and grocery stores. It has been operating for more than a decade and is continuing into 2026. Frozen foods will be added to the list of eligible foods as well as unlimited earning and spending options.

If you have questions about the program, call the hotline at 866-586-2796 or visit doubleupfoodbucks.org.

Detroit sports updates

NFL: The Detroit Lions face the Pittsburgh Steelers in a Sunday night match up. Lions fans probably have a Detroit win on their Christmas list because they currently have a 25% chance of making it to the playoffs, according to ESPN reports. If they win the last three games of the season including the game against the Steelers, their chances rise to 95%. Kickoff is at 4:25 p.m. at Ford Field.

NBA: The Pistons fell to the Dallas Mavericks yesterday in a tight overtime matchup. The loss doesn’t change up too much because they are still number one in the eastern conference with a 21-6 record. The next game is tomorrow, Dec. 20 against the Charlotte Hornets at Little Caesars Arena. Tip off is at 7:30 p.m.

NHL: The Red Wings, currently on top of the Atlantic Division, go against the Washington Capitals tomorrow at the Captial One Arena. The game starts at 12:30 p.m.

Detroit Sandwich Week

Detroit Sandwich Week is going down right after Christmas. Sandwiched in between Christmas and the New Year, this annual event celebrates different local sandwich shops each day to support community and small businesses.

This year’s featured shops are Mudgie’s, Vesper and Ayiti Spaghetti, Ladder 4 Wine Bar, Roccos, Tall Trees Cade and Batch Brewing Company. For more information, visit detroitsandwichparty.square.site.

Perfume popup

Artisan perfumer and “scent docent” Terees Western will host a popup at Source Booksellers on Saturday for her business FragranTed. Visitors will have a chance to create their own holiday scents and learn about using scent to celebrate and make memories. The event runs from 2–4 p.m. at 4240 Cass Avenue.

Listen to the latest episode of the “Detroit Evening Report” on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, NPR.org or wherever you get your podcasts.

Double Up Food Bucks is a statewide program through the Fair Food Network. It matches SNAP benefits used to buy fresh and frozen fruits and vegetables at participating grocers and farmers markets.

Back in November, SNAP benefit recipients were on edge, wondering if money would be available to feed themselves and their families.

The program extended its offerings in November, introducing Double up benefits, like Double Up bonus bucks offering $40 vouchers for fresh fruits and veggies. Those incentives are ending Dec. 31.

Rachel Hoh is director of Double Up Food Bucks. They spoke to me about the program and its significance to shoppers and local grocers. 

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More stories from The Metro

The recent pause in SNAP benefits has pushed hunger back into the headlines. Families who were already stretching every dollar suddenly had to stretch the impossible. At the same time, grocery stores, stadiums, airports, and restaurants were still throwing away food that could have fed them.

Jasmine Crowe-Houston has spent years thinking about that contradiction, and she built her company, Goodr, to close the gap. 

The idea is simple but radical: hunger is not about having too little food. Instead, it is about wasting too much of it, and failing to get it to the people who need it.

Goodr is her answer. It is a tech-driven system that turns surplus food into meals, waste streams into climate wins, and food access into something dignified. 

What started in her one-bedroom apartment in Atlanta has now grown into a national model that keeps millions of pounds of food out of landfills and puts millions of meals on dinner tables.

Jasmine Crowe-Houston joined Robyn Vincent to discuss how the SNAP pause has magnified the urgency of feeding Americans—and what scaling the system she has built really looks like in American cities.

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More stories from The Metro

Funding for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) — also known as EBT and Bridge Card in Michigan —  is still uncertain. Yesterday, the Trump administration announced the use of designated emergency funds to pay for half of what card holders normally receive. That’s after the government shutdown froze monthly EBT disbursements on November 1, 2025.

Nearly a quarter of Wayne County residents rely on SNAP benefits to eat.

With the uncertainty surrounding federal funding, community organizations across metro Detroit have been stepping up to fill the gap and ensure people are fed and cared for.

BasBlue, a community organization and gathering place for women and nonbinary people, is located in Midtown, Detroit and was established in 2021.

On Monday, they hosted a first-ever “Community Supper” in response to SNAP benefits uncertainty resulting from the government shutdown.

Ellen Gilchrist, BasBlue CEO, joined the Metro to discuss why now was the time to provide meals to the public.

Subscribe to The Metro on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, NPR.org or wherever you get your podcasts.

Listen to The Metro weekdays from 10 a.m. to noon ET on 101.9 FM and streaming on demand.

More stories from The Metro

The federal government shutdown nearing the one-month marker. Republicans and Democrats on Capitol Hill remain locked in a standoff over a new budget.

As a result, funding on hand to support certain government programs is running out. That includes SNAP benefits — the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services confirms that it will not be able to provide food stamps to low-income families beginning in November.

Alex Hill is project director of the Detroit Food Map Initiative, which surveys neighborhoods on grocery access. He says parts of Detroit will be especially hard hit.

“The estimated household income of houses that rely on SNAP is about $29 thousand,” says Hill, “so any household in that range is going to be having a really difficult time.”

He adds that SNAP households will feel a wide range of effects.

“People aren’t going to be able to work as well as they want to,” says Hill. “Kids aren’t going to be able to learn as well as they should. Folks who are reliant on taking medications on a regular basis — you have to take food when you take medicine.”

Hill says pausing SNAP benefits is likely to have a negative impact on grocery stores in low-income areas, that rely on customers using food stamps to shop. The Michigan Department of Health and Human Services say pausing the food stamps program is likely to impact about 13% of Michigan households, with 1.4 million residents relying on the service.

A number of states around the country are suing the federal government in an attempt to support SNAP funding.

Suzanne McAtee has attended the classes offered through Munson Hospital’s Fruit and Vegetables Prescription Program since they began five years ago.

At 93, she credits the program — through which doctors prescribe diet education as a treatment for chronic diseases such as obesity, diabetes and high blood pressure — with helping her manage her health.

“I have stage-five kidney disease. My next step is dialysis,” McAtee said. “I have controlled this through my diet, which is very important to me, and that’s the other reason I pay particular attention to everything I eat.”

Come month’s end, the class may not exist.

The class is led for free by educators who are part of the federally funded SNAP-Education program, which partners with more than 33,000 organizations nationwide to promote healthy eating, physical activity, and better food access. In Michigan, two agencies — Michigan State University Extension and the Michigan Fitness Foundation — operate SNAP-Ed programs in places such as schools, senior centers, and food pantries.

Funding cuts

Congress slashed funding for SNAP-Ed in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act earlier this year. More than 120 MSU Extension health educators will lose their jobs across Michigan this month, and the Michigan Fitness Foundation is in the process of sunsetting some of its programs into next year.

Michigan Congressman Jack Bergman, who supported the cuts in May, did not respond to a request for comment. In an email to constituents, he said that, while the SNAP-Ed initiative was “commendable,” the results were disappointing, citing rising childhood obesity rates. According to the Ballard Center for Social Impact, the rate of childhood obesity has tripled since the 1970s.

Sarah Eichberger, a Traverse City SNAP-Ed educator, disagreed that that was proof SNAP-Ed programs failed. Rather, she said, that highlights how large the American health crisis really is.

“How can you now say one underfunded federal nutrition program is responsible for not making our entire country healthy?” Eichberger said. “We live in a country where there are systems and structures that prevent people from being healthy.”

Michigan’s share of the SNAP-Ed budget

Of the SNAP-Ed budget — $536 million in fiscal year 2025 — Michigan received $27 million and relied on that funding more than any other state of its size — with only California, New York and Pennsylvania receiving more funding.

In 2024, the MSU Extension’s SNAP-Ed program reached more than 115,000 people across Michigan, with national SNAP-Ed outreach serving millions of low-income Americans.

Much of the work done by SNAP-Ed, according to Eichberger, is behind the scenes, like securing grants for its 1,000 community partners. Those partnerships allowed the program to stretch its budget further and reach more people.

How can you now say one underfunded federal nutrition program is responsible for not making our entire country healthy? We live in a country where there are systems and structures that prevent people from being healthy.

—SNAP-Ed educator Sarah Eichberger

Two years ago, Eichberger helped launch a program to deliver boxes of locally grown fruits and vegetables to daycares across 32 counties. That initiative, made possible through outside grants, relied on the network of SNAP-Ed staff working directly with child care providers to offer expertise and support.

The loss of SNAP-Ed, Eichberg said, is not just health and nutrition classes going away. It’s the loss of an entire network of people and partnerships working to create healthy systems and programs.

Making America healthy 

While the Trump administration’s Make America Healthy Again movement — which has focused on banning red food dyes and encouraged the fast food restaurant Steak ‘n Shake to switch from frying its food in seed oil to beef tallow — has made headlines, Eichberger said the work SNAP-Ed does to promote a healthy diet of fresh fruit and vegetables along with exercise is even more important.

“If you can get people to be healthier, if you can prevent Type 2 diabetes, heart disease… that’s so much more impactful than some of these things the conversation has been moving more towards,” said Eichberger.

Loss of funding, loss of access

The loss of SNAP-Ed is part of a larger trend of cuts to public health funding. That includes increased work requirements for Medicaid and cuts to SNAP’s food assistance program through the Big, Beautiful Bill, along with long enough delays in US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention funding that local agencies have had to lay off staff.

Eichberger worries about the long-term effects, especially as fewer people will have access to food stamps and health care coverage.

“Less people are going to be able to access food stamps. There’ll be less access (to) health care coverage,” Eichberger said. “We haven’t fully seen the impact yet… but it will be significant.”

Hopes for new funding

Patti Tibaldi, the project manager for SNAP-Ed at Traverse City Area Public Schools through the Michigan Fitness Foundation, had to let go of four staff members when funding was cut earlier this year. However, she may be able to bring them back if new funding becomes available.

The US Department of Agriculture recently opened a new grant for SNAP-Ed programs, although with reduced funding. The grant is meant to sunset the program, Tibaldi said, and will only last until next summer. Many organizations, Tibaldi said, have chosen not to pursue it.

For now, Tibaldi and the few remaining SNAP-Ed programs are waiting to find out about that USDA grant — and see if they have just one year left.

“We’re going to try to hang in there — whatever little thing we can do to help these families and the kids,” said Tibaldi. “I think it’s very shortsighted to lose the focus on how important it is for kids and families to learn healthy habits.”

This reporting is made possible by the Northern Michigan Journalism Collaborative, a project led by Interlochen Public Radio and Bridge Michigan, and funded by Press Forward Northern Michigan.