Courtesy of Exclusive Brands
Ann Arbor's Exclusive Brands became the first store in Michigan to be granted a license to sell recreational marijuana. It has since been followed with Greenstone and Arbors Wellness, both also in Ann Arbor.
When it comes to marijuana in Michigan, all roads lead to Ann Arbor. The city of trees is maintaining its historic lead position when it comes to cannabis in the state of Michigan.
As legal adult-use marijuana kicks off in the state, the only licensed retail outlets are in the home of the Hash Bash, the same city that made possession a $5 fine back in the 1970s. Arbors Wellness, Greenstone Provisions, and Exclusive Brands will be selling marijuana to adults as soon as they can get the paperwork done after Dec. 1. That's where you have to go if you intend to buy marijuana without a patient certification card.
"This is all highly usual," says Bruce Barcott, a senior editor at Leafly.com and author of Weed the People. "California, America's leading cannabis state, had a very limited number of stores open on it's opening day. It's not a shock or a sign of any huge dysfunction. It's how every other state has done it."
Here are a few other tips for what to expect:
• In order to buy marijuana, adults will need a valid ID and cash money.
• There will be long lines at the few stores that are open. The adult-use market for marijuana is several times larger than the medical market.
• Prices will be high. When sales started in the state of Washington, a gram of average marijuana was priced at $23. Within a year, it dropped to the $6-$7 range.
• Products you should expect to see include marijuana flowers, pre-rolls, tinctures, creams, and edibles. Due to the vaping lung illness, vape cartridges have been banned by the state and are temporarily unavailable until testing is implemented.
A word to the newbie
Leafly's Bruce Barcott says that a lot of people who are cannabis curious want to experience it as an edible, because smoking anything is not looked upon kindly in current culture.There are a few things to know here. The edible experience is a bit different than the smoking or vaping kind.
First of all, edibles take longer to take effect than smoking. When ingested through the lungs, the effects of cannabis can be instantaneous, or at least within minutes. Edibles can take an hour or more to kick in. The early days of legalization in Colorado was full of stories about people who ate the entire 100 milligram chocolate bar when they should have just broken off a section. The slogan there became "start low, go slow."
"The effect of a 5-milligram dose is about the same as a glass of wine," says Barcott. "That is not a perfect analogy, but it is the easiest way for most people to get a handle on how to dose a cannabis edible."
And remember, no operating heavy machinery.
