Package of Bills to Amend the MMMA Grows
House Bills 5300 to 5302 would amend different acts that regulate the medical marijuana market. Among other things, the bills would do all of the following:
• Regulate licensed specialty medical growers.
• Require the statewide monitoring system that tracks medical marijuana sales and transfers between licensees and registered primary caregivers and registered qualified patients to track certain information pertaining to licensed specialty medical growers.
• Prohibit transfers of marijuana from a licensed specialty medical grower to a licensee in the recreational marijuana market.
• Prohibit a licensed grower, processor, secure transporter, or safety compliance facility licensee from also being licensed as a licensed specialty medical grower.
• Reduce, from five to one, the number of registered qualified patients a registered primary caregiver may assist.
• Eliminate provisions barring a registered qualified patient from transferring marijuana
or a marijuana-infused product to any individual and making selling marijuana to someone who is not a registered qualifying patient a felony offense.
• No longer exclude an applicant from meeting the conditions for automatic registration or licensure due to a felony based solely on a marijuana-related offense committed during the ten years immediately preceding an application as a registered primary caregiver or licensed specialty medical grower.
House Bill 5320 would revise a citation in the Public Health Code to account for changes made to the Michigan Medical Marijuana Act by HB 5301.
House Bills 5319 and 5321 would respectively amend the Use Tax Act and the General Sales Tax Act to exempt the sale of marijuana by a registered primary caregiver or licensed specialty medical grower to a registered qualified patient from the use and sales taxes. *
5512 would reverse the Thue decision, that allows medical marijuana patients to use marijuana while on parole or probation. Although this bill is not tie bared to the previously summarized bills. It looks like this could be another lame duck attack on medical marijuana people of Michigan.
*Sourced from Legislative Analysis by the Michigan House Fiscal Agency
MRA Considers CBD as Source for Cheap THC
CBD can be used to synthesize THC in a lab and can be used for making marijuana products like edibles and vape carts at a fraction of the cost of natural THC extractions from biomass material (trim) from licensed commercial Michigan grows. As seen in the MM Report FOIA response, Andrew Brisbo, Director of the MRA, has sights on creating a national standard for cannabis regulations and centralizing all aspects of every variety of the cannabis plant under government control.
As the amount of commercial cannabis enters the market the wholesale price has gone down in Michigan. If synthetic THC comes into play it will play a factor in both the marijuana and hemp markets. If Michigan wholesale flower is going for eight to nine hundred per pound, and much lower, companies that are cash tight are likely to go under or be acquired.
Tyson 2.0 Cannabis Brand Launches in Three States
Licensing deals of this nature create a cross branding opportunity for companies that have processing licenses in states that have legalized products like edibles, pre rolls and vape carts that can be branded. Brand ambassadors, like Tyson, are paid not just for the use of his name on their products but also for appearance fees which start at a hundred grand a pop according to event organizers.
Tyson has been advocating for cannabis, and has given testimony of how the plant has had a positive and negative impact on his life. Larry “Ratso” Sloman, writer for High Times, Rolling Stone and National Lampoon, did Tyson’s biography Undisputed Truth, and documented as the world of the cannabis industry began opening up to the retired boxer. In an interview with Dopey Podcast, Ratso shared a story about the origins of the strain Sour Diesel. Tyson had come into an interview session for the biography and he had a dispensary jar of some Sour Diesel. When Ratso said he knew the original grower of the strain and that he could handle introductions, Tyson exclaimed, “Hook me up, Bro!” Tyson’s experience in prison and in the drug world lends credence to the brand.
MI Normal Reinvented
In a recent blog, Thompson advocates for multimillion dollar cannabis businesses: One person’s pricing crisis could be another’s bonanza, points out Michigan NORML executive director Rick Thompson. “Our market is in its infancy. Our price structure is in a race to the bottom. We’re at $187 an ounce [for wholesale flower], according to the MRA right now. That is a difficult to sustain business model when you’re doing that wholesale. When you introduce a cheaper price the only companies that could sustain that are MSOs, who can offset their losses in Michigan with profits somewhere else,” said Thompson.
In his parallel reality Rick shows up at local grey market establishments and tries to assert his authority over the caregiver community. Thompson’s cult following among grassroots activists previously comprising of the membership of MI Norml wains in favor of entrepreneurs and progressive democratic operatives searching in all the wrong places for their place in the Michigan cannabis space.
