Earlier this summer, I spent a few weeks smoking my way through six strains from one of Flint’s most interesting growers and taking detailed notes in the sun. You can find that review below.

Plus, a border town is at war with its own dispensaries, Michigan’s medical marijuana market has all but vanished, one Ferndale cannabis business is expanding while its neighbors fold, and there’s a new chance for stoners to win free concert tickets all summer long.

Roll one up and let’s get into it. 

Every so often, a pile of free weed lands on my desk.

This one came from Brandon Coffield at Voyage Bloom—the Flint cultivator behind this year’s Billy Awards—who handed me six strains from his latest harvest and asked for my honest take.

They’re loud, gassy, and most of them smell like a freshly uncapped Sharpie. 

GROWTH SPURT: While dozens of Detroit area dispensaries have gone under, Nature’s Remedy in Ferndale is doing the opposite—opening two more stores in Redford and Pontiac. The shop has reportedly built its name on top-shelf flower and live rosin, plus a clean, unhurried sales floor where you can stop and smell the buds instead of getting rushed through a line.

SMALL BATCH: Some of Michigan’s smallest, highest-end grow operations are quietly thriving amid an otherwise brutally competitive industry—namely because they’d rather sell a little great weed than a lot of cheap weed. But whether they can hold that line is unclear. Michigan’s craft brewers tried the same approach a decade ago; most got bought out by conglomerates anyway.

MEDICAL MELTDOWN: Michigan’s medical marijuana market has all but disappeared—with about $775 in recreational weed now sold for every $1 that’s being spent on prescription pot.

BORDER PATROL: New Buffalo Township is still actively trying to thin out its own cannabis market, with local officials advancing plans to revoke a license for a local dispensary called Trap Stars. The store denies wrongdoing alleged by the city and will get a second hearing on July 20.

PREVENTION FUNDING: Michigan is investing $3.8 million into youth substance use prevention, split across 12 organizations statewide. Preventing underage weed use is a newer, trickier challenge in a state where it’s been legal for adults for several years. But state officials say the earlier someone starts, the higher the risk of a substance use disorder later in life.

ICYMI: If you missed last week’s newsletter, I updated our guide to the Michigan dispensaries that stay open late—including a few that stay open until 2 a.m. and a few that never close at all.

Last week, I asked whether you tip your budtender. 

And it’s clear you’re a generous bunch. About 70% of you said that you always leave a tip and another 20% of you said that you usually tip. Almost nobody copped to never tipping at all.

Honestly, this surprised me. In the age of online ordering, half these transactions are basically grab-and-go. You tap a few buttons, drive over, and pick up a bag that’s packed and waiting. That’s like tipping when you pick up a pizza you ordered online—which you probably do, too.

This week, I want to know more: 

What earns your budtender an especially big tip?

Stay tuned. I’ll have the results in next week’s edition. 

One of the perks of this job is going behind the scenes at cannabis cultivation facilities. 

I’ve been inside dozens of Michigan grow operations over the last several years, and I’d recommend it to anyone. It’s the best way to understand the science behind the harvest and to get a real feel for which companies are actually putting in the work to grow top-shelf weed.

And as it turns out, you don’t even need to write a weed newsletter to do it. 

Michigan Marijuana Tours is one of the few companies betting on canna-tourism here—a market I’d argue could really use some more attention. The whole pitch is getting more people past the dispensary counter and into the rooms where the weed is actually grown and processed.

The company is managed by the same folks behind Cake House, and their next two tours are both at Hytek in Detroit—July 9 and July 23, each at 1 p.m. Guests will meet at The Refinery, then get walked next door to the grow for a guided, hour-long tour. You’ll suit up, run through a quick safety briefing, and then get the full inside scoop from the people actually doing the work.

I’ve never been inside Hytek’s facility myself, but I’ve heard (and smoked) good things. If you end up registering for one of these tours, you’ll have to email me and let me know how it went.

A few weeks back I griped about dispensaries dangling prizes to farm Google reviews. So, in fairness, here’s one store doing things the right way—with no strings attached.

The Greenhouse of Walled Lake is running a thing called the “Summer Grass Pass”—basically a rolling concert-ticket raffle that runs all summer long. No purchase necessary, no review to leave, nothing to buy. You just pick a show, submit your name, and hope you get picked.

The next show is A$AP Rocky at Little Caesars Arena on July 8. But the full lineup runs through the end of September and includes other concerts like Foo Fighters with Queens of the Stone Age at Ford Field, Jack Harlow at the Fillmore, and Ray LaMontagne at the Fox Theatre.

Entries close four days before each show, and you can enter for as many as you want. Just pick the ones you’d actually attend and fill out the online entry form—except for Weezer at Little Caesars Arena on Sept. 23. I put my name in for that show, and I’d like to improve my odds. 

I spent last weekend with my family at Brower Park, a campground in Stanwood.

This place sits right on the cusp of being Up North without the all-day drive—close enough to dart over from Lansing after work on a Friday evening and still far enough away that there’s zero cell reception. Here, you’re off the grid whether you like it or not.

I happen to like it.

As a kid, I did a lot of camping that included long, aimless walks down dirt roads exactly like this one, headed nowhere in particular on the way to the lake. It’s about as nostalgic as it gets for me—except I still do the exact same shit as an adult; I just bring weed now.

In my hand is Marker Fumez from Uplyfted Cannabis Co. Their Permanent Marker is the best version of the strain in the state. And they know it, which is why they’ve earned the right to mess around with it so much. This one is a cross between Sherbanger and Ze Marker. It tastes like tropical candy and comes with a high that lands neatly between relaxed, euphoric, and focused.

That turned out to be the perfect pregame for getting dragged behind a speedboat in an inner tube for an hour and a half—another childhood pastime that I simply refuse to retire. The weed kept me calm and dialed in, but I still screamed just as much as I did when I was 10 years old. 

Stay safe out there ‘Ganders. Remember that recreational cannabis is only legal in Michigan for ages 21 and up—and it’s NEVER OK to get high and drive.