California became the weed capital of America in the popular imagination thanks to movies like Up in Smoke. But that’s changing as more states legalize the sale, consumption, and growth of marijuana. Michigan, for instance, now sells more than California, despite having only about a quarter of the population.
A big part of Michigan’s business is out-of-state sales, since most other areas in the Midwest haven’t legalized medical marijuana, let alone recreational, points out Connor Sheets, investigative and enterprise reporter for The LA Times. Michigan’s price of weed has also dropped due to high demand. Meanwhile, California has high taxes and strict regulations on weed.
He illustrates the difference in pricing: Outside Lansing, a drive-through dispensary sells 28 one-gram joins for about $55, while a single one-gram joint in the Golden State costs at least $7. And when it comes to brand-name vapes, California’s prices are three to four times higher than in Michigan.
“When I was in Michigan, I mean, the prices are so low, as one of the executives at a cannabis company there noted, it’s cheaper to buy cannabis gummies there than it is to buy Haribo gummy bears. … So it’s really just hard for the illegal industry to compete in Michigan.”
Sheets adds, “One of the months where they really went gangbusters, it was 50 million more units than California.”
The Wolverine State grows its weed both outdoors and indoors, and Sheets says he went to a 250,000-square-foot facility that produces 100,000 pounds of cannabis a year plus 300,000 vape cartridges a month. “They have a machine that cranks out over 12 joints a minute. So despite the difference in climate, they’re not having any trouble producing large quantities of cannabis to meet the demand.”
Customers there range from young and old, and Sheets says the weed business “does seem to cut across all social boundaries.”
“Some of the people I talked to … before it was legal, they never wanted to break the law, so they never tried it. And now that they’re retired and it’s legal, and you can get a joint for $2 or whatever, they figured they try it. … There’s also the touted benefits of THC, CBD, and whatnot, with some of the maladies that you can get as you get older — aches and pains and things like that.”
This story was published by KCRW