Everyone who is Anyone, Knows Brenda and Roger from the Jackson County Compassion Club
In 2009, Roger Maufort founded the JC3 (more formally the Jackson County Compassion club), a private club for medical marijuana patients and caregivers. JC3 grew to having over 14,000 members. The club sponsored hundreds of cancer patients to get their Michigan Medical Marihuana Program cards and try Rick Simpson Oil (aka, RSO) for free. As the secretary of JC3. Brenda Lutz spent her thirties learning through experience every aspect of medical marijuana and quickly grew to be recognized as an expert. Roger directed JC3, and cemented himself as a hero to the community and leader in the legalization movement in several petition drives. If it wasn't for places like JC3, we would not have been able to legalize marijuana in Michigan.
In 2013, Jackson County Compassion Club, moved away from providing clones, in favor of high-quality seeds. Clones can often be contaminated, so more advanced grower prefer to make their own mother plants from seed versus getting a clone from another’s grow. As the membership grew so too did the Seed Cellar, that was formally established as a stand-alone company in 2016, and has over 3500 seed strains.
In 2017, Roger decided he it was time to turn the reins over to his daughter Brenda, who was eager to meet the challenge of navigating the complicated labyrinth of local municipal administration, stonewalling state and local authorities. Maufort maintained the Seed Cellar, which remained open, in the original location on Michigan Ave in Jackson, after the JC3 was asked to close by the local police following the announcement by the State of Michigan that they would be considering which existing cannabis facilities to license under the recently passed, MMFLA. Brenda along with her good friend and grow partner, Jon Bozung, found a suitable place to reopen the JC3 in Leoni Township just outside of the city Jackson.
Brenda and Jon were determined to get one of 6 licenses in the township, and camped out behind the township office for 4 nights, because for some reason Leoni Township was not being forthright about when you could apply. Due to self-created confusion Leoni Township faced multiple lawsuits. Leading the way was Brenda and her attorney, who prevented the good old boys from boxing them out, forcing the township to consider all 15 qualified applicants. Having been an existing medical marijuana facility, JC3 was able to reopen under what was then called “Emergence Rules” and continue to serve their patients. Brenda ran one of only two such places and was the only sole woman proprietor of a provisioning center. The compassion club had to transform from a private club to the state model of a provisioning center, the new state term for a dispensary. For two years JC3 was in legal limbo and unable to advertise and promote, and business declined as new companies with big money came in to the Jackson Area and flooded, the area with commercial cannabis.
In 2020, after two years of denials and litigation with the state, a circuit court judge ordered the Marijuana Regulatory Agency to give Brenda her medical marijuana provisioning center license. This feat is very rare, but Brenda’s, like most facilities approved by the state, had the requisite significant amount of capital be on the application.
In 2022, this last April, Brenda was finally awarded her Adult-Us (recreational cannabis) license. This came late in scoop of the new competition from wealthy investors who already had rec licenses for their dispensaries in the Jackson area.
Present day, Brenda is now ready to take back all that was effectively stolen by the capitalist men who were fast tracked to the front of the line to get licensed before her. “Get Lifted” will be the new name of JC3, but Brenda doesn’t’t want Michiganders to forget the origin story.
“Unlike most places we take time to really communicate with our customers, which is what makes us different,” explained Brenda, as she gave the MM Report a tour of the Get Lifted store. “Jackson is not like Ann Arbor, we have to provide cost effective products, twenty-five dollar quarters of quality flower to be competitive.”
Brenda’s dispensary has a very maternal interior decor, with a surprisingly diverse selection of flower and products including her favorite strain, Wonka Bars, which tests at 34% THC. Roger pops in to see Brenda regularly and say high to everyone, but stays focused on genetics at the Seed Cellar, a proud father of an amazingly powerful and determined independent woman and ganga goddess. The old JC3, now Get Lifted is worth driving to and meeting Brenda, her spirit and good karma can lift the visitors spirt and inspire you too dream big. Soon she will acquire a license to grow her own strains and make her own products. Having watched this 12-year journey we at the MM Report are glad to welcome back one of our oldest and best sponsors, and our readers will too.
