MICHIGAN—A gubernatorial candidate who opposed legalizing weed is now cashing the industry’s checks. Patients are packing the Capitol to fight over plant counts. And a popular vape manufacturer just got hit with the biggest fine in state history.
Here’s what you might’ve missed in Michigan weed this week:
SMOKE SIGNALS: Republican US Rep. John James opposed legalizing weed in 2018 and still carries a D- rating from NORML. But this summer, Michigan’s cannabis industry executives wrote him about $90,000 in checks and are now backing his candidacy for governor. James has since pledged to repeal the state’s 24% wholesale tax without saying what pays for the roads.
HOUSE PLANTS: Patients and advocates packed the Capitol last week for Cannabis Day, hosted by Michigan Weedsters, to push back on bills that would tighten caregiver cultivation limits. Amie Carter, the group’s president, says her 19-year-old son uses cannabis to manage symptoms tied to his autism—and that a bill from Republican state Rep. Joe Aragona (House Bill 5757) would make them both felons for the amount they have stashed away at home.
BLIND SPOT: Michigan Investment 10, the Pinconning manufacturer behind Muha Meds vapes, has been hit with a record-setting $2 million fine and lost its processor licenses after state regulators uncovered various surveillance failures, inventory tracking problems, testing noncompliance, and other production issues. State officials called the violations “egregious.”
SECOND OPINION: The Detroit Metro Times staff picked their favorite Michigan flower, rosin, vapes, prerolls, edibles, and dispensaries of the year. Their official list is worth your time—if only to find out who won “Best Weed for People Who Still Miss 2010.” I’d have voted the same way.
ICYMI: If you missed last week’s newsletter, I gave up joints for three days and reviewed three live rosin vape pens from three different Michigan brands—each of them $30, all off the top shelf at Green Acres in Ann Arbor. All three were worth the money, which isn’t a sentence I get to write too often. What really separated them wasn’t quality; it was hardware and personality.
READ MORE: Lansing lab says Michigan is growing weed for the wrong reason
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