Cannabis

What Michigan stoners should know about cannabis sleep gummies

I spent a few weeks eating four different brands of cannabis sleep gummies before bed. The cheapest one won.

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Kyle Kaminski/The ‘Gander Newsroom

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MICHIGAN—For the last several years, the cannabis industry has been attempting to sell Michiganders a familiar bedtime story. And it usually goes something like this: 

Make cheap gummies. Add some CBN. Sprinkle in some terpenes. Slap the word “sleep” and an image of the moon somewhere on the package. Then, charge a few extra dollars.

CBN—or cannabinol—is a cannabinoid that’s quietly taken over the gummy rack at your local dispensary. You’ll find it in almost every sleep-marketed product on the shelf right now, usually paired with ingredients like lavender, chamomile, or terpene blends that promise relaxation. 

The pitch is simple: CBN can supposedly help quiet the mind and make it easier to fall asleep than THC alone. The problem is that the science behind that claim is still pretty thin—and the cannabis industry isn’t exactly waiting around for the research to catch up.

So, I decided to find out for myself. I bought four different brands of cannabis sleep gummies, spent a few weeks eating them before bed, and took notes on everything from how quickly I fell asleep to how I felt the next morning. The results were not at all what I expected.

Wyld Elderberry Gummies

Let’s start with the most recognizable name in the bunch. 

Wyld is one of the biggest cannabis gummy brands in the country right now, and these “high dose” elderberry sleep gummies are its flagship bid for your nightstand. I found this package for $20 at Ascend Cannabis, and each gummy includes 20 mg of THC and 5 mg of CBN.

Kyle Kaminski/The ‘Gander Newsroom

First off, the packaging is great. It’s a small plastic tub tucked inside an ornate cardboard box that looks like it belongs in a hotel gift shop. It’s the kind of thing that catches your eye from across the sales floor and makes you feel like you’re buying something intentional.

It was almost enough to make me forget these are distillate gummies—meaning, the cannabis extract has been heavily refined and stripped of most of its natural compounds before getting blended back into sugar, gelatin, and a curated mix of added terpenes. Here, that includes linalool, myrcene, beta-caryophyllene, and terpineol, which are all associated with relaxation.

Flavor-wise, these are the best-tasting gummies of the bunch. Zero aftertaste. Clean finish. The flavor is mostly blueberries and blackberries, which was fine by me. I’ve never actually seen elderberries in the produce section at my local Meijer, so I’ll take their word for it.

In terms of effects? I took one gummy an hour before bed, and I still had trouble falling asleep.

The next day, I tried two gummies and I was noticeably stoned. My mind was quieter than usual, my body was relaxed, and I eventually drifted off at roughly my normal pace. Did the CBN work? Maybe. But I think I just got high enough that sleep became the path of least resistance.

The following morning, I woke up feeling pretty normal—no grogginess, no lingering fog, but also no real evidence that these worked any better than an ordinary THC gummy.

Camino Sours Blackberry Dream Gummies

Camino is a sub-brand of Kiva Confections, a huge corporate name in the cannabis space. And this product—which I found for $20 at Ascend Cannabis—had the most ambitious branding of the bunch, with “deep sleep” printed in bold, all-caps font on the front of the package.

Kyle Kaminski/The ‘Gander Newsroom

It’s another distillate blend, and each gummy had an even mix of 10 mg THC, CBN, and CBD. They also included an unnamed terpene blend, along with chamomile and lavender extracts. 

The packaging—a durable, resealable metal tin—won the presentation competition, hands-down. The gummies themselves are coated in sour sugar, chewy without being rubbery, and held up better than any of the others in terms of texture and freshness.

The taste, unfortunately, is where things started to unravel. 

There’s a real blackberry flavor up front, but the finish is bitter and artificial in a way that the sour sugar coating never fully manages to hide. If you’re taking one before bed, keep water nearby.

The bigger disappointment was the effect. After two gummies, I felt a mild head buzz but very little full-body relaxation. Falling asleep took about as long as usual, and while I eventually drifted off, I didn’t wake up feeling any more rested than normal. For a product that practically screams “DEEP SLEEP” on the package, the actual experience felt surprisingly ordinary.

Lost Farm Thorny Berry Gummies

Lost Farm is another Kiva sub-brand. I found this 10-pack of gummies for $22 at Ascend Cannabis, and each gummy was packed with a 20 mg dose of THC and 10 mg of CBN.

Kyle Kaminski/The ‘Gander Newsroom

Notably, this product is the odd one out in this roundup for one important reason: It’s the only gummy on this list made with real live resin instead of distillate. 

That distinction matters more than it might sound. Distillate is cheap, consistent, and shelf-stable. But the accompanying high tends to be a bit sterile and one-dimensional. 

Live resin is a different animal. It’s made from fresh-frozen cannabis, which preserves a much fuller range of the plant’s natural cannabinoids and terpenes. The result is a more complex experience—one where the full spectrum of the plant’s compounds are working together rather than THC doing all the heavy lifting alone. And you can genuinely taste the difference.

These gummies have a distinctly weedy, plant-forward flavor. The berry is still there but it’s definitely in the backseat. As a daily joint smoker, that doesn’t really bother me at all. I just think of it less like a snack and more like herbal medicine that someone made to taste decent.

In terms of effects? It worked. Brilliantly. I slept like a rock and didn’t wake up once during the night. In retrospect, taking two of these gummies before bed was probably overkill. Because after about 20 minutes of scrolling on my phone, I could barely keep my eyes open.

The only downside? I still felt stoned the next morning. During the week, that’s a real problem. But for a Saturday or Sunday when sleeping in is part of the plan, I’ll be back for more.

Goody Bag Goodnight Grape Gummies

Goody Bag is a subsidiary of PTS Corp, which operates Consume Cannabis. It’s a corporate operation that runs on cheap distillate at high volume. The $7 price tag reflects that. But with 40 mg of THC and 20 mg of CBN per piece, it’s also the most potent product in this review. 

Kyle Kaminski/The ‘Gander Newsroom

For cheap distillate, the flavor wasn’t bad. I actually enjoy that artificial Kool-Aid grape flavor, so I’m a little biased here. There’s definitely still a faint chemical bitterness underneath if you’re paying attention, but the grape is loud (and sugary) enough to mostly drown it out.

The high also surprised me. I took two gummies—which at 80 mg of THC was a significant miscalculation because I was thoroughly stoned. But I was also asleep within the hour. And I woke up feeling relatively normal, which is more than I can say about the Lost Farm gummies.

When I’m buying cannabis for flavor or for a more nuanced, daytime experience, live resin and live rosin are almost always worth the premium price tag. But when the only real goal is falling asleep and waking up functional, maybe I don’t really need the full-spectrum, entourage effect. 

Maybe it just boils down to a clean, consistent dose of THC—and CBN, for whatever it’s actually worth—at a price that doesn’t break the bank. For me, Goody Bag ticked all the boxes. 

The bottom line

After a few weeks of eating gummies before bed, here’s my honest verdict: 

Sleep gummies work about as well as regular gummies—which is to say, THC helps you fall asleep and most of the added botanicals and terpene blends are just clever marketing.

Maybe CBN contributes something. The chamomile and lavender extract are at least plausible. But across all four products, I never experienced anything that felt dramatically different from what I’d expect from a normal THC gummy.

What did matter was cannabis quality, dosage, and how I felt the next morning.

The Lost Farm gummies delivered the strongest overall sleep experience, but they also left me feeling noticeably stoned after waking up. Great for a Friday night—less ideal before a Tuesday morning meeting. The Goody Bag gummies, meanwhile, knocked me out quickly, helped me stay asleep, and somehow left me feeling relatively normal the next day—all for $7.

My advice? Shop for potency, consistency, and cannabis quality. Ignore most of the sleep-specific branding. Wyld tasted the best. Camino looked the best. Lost Farm was the most effective. But if your goal is simply getting a good night’s sleep without spending a fortune at the dispensary, the cheapest gummy in this review ended up being the real winner. 

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