The 4/20 Issue

FEATURE The 420 Issue

Send in the clones: A worker at the Wonderbrett and Cloud Cannabis grow facility in Kalamazoo shows off a young marijuana plant.

RANDIAH CAMILLE GREEN

Where your cannabis comes from

Meet the people growing Wonderbrett weed in Kalamazoo, one of Michigan’s newest grow facilities

By Randiah Camille Green

Ashley Maldonado had

been working with special needs children for ve years when the I pandemic hit. Her pay dropped drastically when the elementary school she worked at reduced in-person learning. Since she wasn’t making enough money, she uit her job, started working in the cannabis industry, and never looked back.

Now, aldonado is one of the top weed trimmers at the joint loud annabis and onderbrett grow facility in alamazoo. he trims between , to , grams of marijuana a day on average around four pounds , and makes an hour a huge jump from her previous job as a paraprofessional. I absolutely loved working with special needs children] and I would never have left if it wasn’t for the pay, aldonado tells Metro Times as she uickly snips dried leaves and stems from marijuana ower buds. I used to actually be one of the worst performers here, one of the slowest. I was producing like grams a day, but then I got more focused. aldonado is just one of more than , people working in ichigan’s booming cannabis industry. In case you haven’t heard, ichigan has the third highest number of cannabis jobs in the country, surpassed only by alifornia and olorado. In ichigan, the number of people working with marijuana tops re ghters and police officers combined, according to a anuary report by eattle based cannabis website ea y.

So who are the people working behind the scenes to produce marijuana on a massive scale? hat are their stories? ell, at the onderbrett operation you’ll nd everyone from former healthcare workers to Potawatomi tribe members. e recently spent a day at the onderbrett loud annabis facility, seeing every step of the weed production process from cloning the mother plant, transplanting, cultivating, drying, and

trimming, all the way to packaging the nal product. Along the way, workers told us how they got started in the cannabis industry, which has changed their lives for the better. onderbrett is an ultra premium cannabis brand from alifornia that transplanted itself into the ichigan market in anuary . The company has partnered with ichigan grown loud annabis to produce its fruit avored strains in alamazoo and ship them across the state.

And we’re not saying ultra premium just because of some marketing jargon either onderbrett has the good shit. o founder rett eldman has been growing G ush in .A. and selling it to rappers like noop ogg, r. re, and zibit since the s.

The brand cultivates rare genetics, typically with fairly high TH content, plus the weed just straight up tastes good when you smoke it. e guess that’s to be e pected when you name your strains Grapes of rath, elon G, and range anana. And yes, of course, we smoked it. all it a little bit of authenticity testing for this story. loud annabis ac uired the facility casually called the grow back in eptember from another weed operation called TruGro. eldman and onderbrett co founder ameron amwijk came on board, helped design the grow, and trained sta on the onderbrett method. The facility has brought around jobs to the alamazoo area. hen we arrive at the massive greenhouse with bright, temperature controlled rooms, we’re met by Hiram amwijk, onderbrett’s head of cultivation in ichigan. He gives an animated speech about how the grow is like a family, and invites us to pot a transplant or trim some weed if we want to. It’s cliche, but unlike other companies that pretend to give a shit about their sta and are only concerned with pro ts, it feels sincere. Everyone legitimately seems happy as they go about their day. onderbrett works o a day production cycle from harvest, transplant, and defoliation to cloning, where the process repeats with a new set of plants. es, we know, it sounds backwards to start at harvest, but that’s how the company separates its work days so everything runs like a well oiled machine.

It takes around days from the time a plant is cloned from the mother for it to be ready for market sales. At any given time, the alamazoo grow has about , marijuana plants growing in di erent stages.

The day we visit is transplant day, where baby cannabis plants that have recently been snipped from the mother are taken from the nursery and potted so they can grow up strong and produce the ower we know and love.

This is where we meet , one of the lead cultivators who was previously a treasurer for the okagon and of otawatomi Indians’ tribal government. This isn’t his rst rodeo with cannabis, however. He and his wife have been caregivers for almost a decade. He

started growing cannabis after leaving his year post as a pharmacy technician and deciding to return to his roots, doing things the natural way again. rom my otawatomi perspective, this is traditional medicine, he says about the freshly potted cannabis. I worked at t. ohns Hospital, Troy eaumont, and Henry ord acomb, and I transferred over from doing a more chemical version of medicine to now an organic one. This is what I believe in. I gave up on the pharmacy industry because it felt like pro teering. It felt like we were just treating symptoms and not really healing people. turned to cannabis after he was prescribed opiates and steroids for insu erable migraines, which he knew were detrimental to his health with prolonged use. annabis made things manageable and was so much better for me than taking a chemistry version of compounds that our bodies are not designed to process, he says. There’s always a trade o with pharmaceuticals . They’ll help you in one way, harm you a little bit in another. annabis does not do that. hen the job at the loud annabis onderbrett site came up, it was a no brainer, he says, since he already had cultivation e perience.

Transitioning from the healthcare eld is a common theme among the workers. esron ulpepper, another cultivation lead at the grow, had worked in healthcare for more than years, and left his job in search of something more ful lling just before I hit. He started growing cannabis at home before getting a job at a local dispensary, where he worked for a few months before transitioning behind the scenes.

He already had a love for gardening, but it turns out growing cannabis runs in the family. It was funny because I hadn’t consumed from and , almost years, he says. y mom told me that my grandfather was actually a cultivator but with the legality of it all, obviously it was a family secret. o it turns out I’m a second or third generation cultivator, and I love it. ou know, it’s like what I was supposed to be doing. ulpepper instructs us how to pot a transplant in dried coconut husks, em-

phasizing that plants need gentle care to grow. His voice is nurturing like a parent teaching a child to ride a bike, and his loving respect for the plants is obvious. The e perience feels more like volunteering at a community garden than working in a cannabis growing facility. e stay out of the way of the plant, he e plains. The cannabis knows e actly what it’s doing. e’re just trying to coach it along. Even when we are turning di erent knobs to adjust the way the plant grows the crop’s going the way it wants to go. e’re just kind of guiding it, making sure it’s got the right nutrients and everything.

He adds, perhaps no longer talking about just plants, you got to realize you’re the water and not the rock. e spend a lot of time thinking that we’re gonna impose our will on the way things are going and change the direction. ou can wear down a rock eventually, but just realize that you’re going the right direction, whichever way you’re supposed to be going.

If we’re the water and not the rock, we must let life take us wherever it wants instead of clutching to relationships, jobs, and situations that we want to be for us when they aren’t. e must trust the ebbs and ows to lead us where we need to go.

It’s time to move on to the trim room.

Here, aldonado and the trim crew are snipping away at the dried buds diligently to meet their goal of grams each per day. hen it’s our turn to give it a try, aldonado puts us to shame, perfectly shaping at least fat nugs by the time we nally nish a tiny one.

Nearly everyone we meet here is upfront about making more money working in the cannabis industry than in their previous jobs. Another trimmer, Amy iler, declines to give an e act amount, but says she now makes three times as much as she did in her former career as a veterinarian assistant. I can actually support my family here and pay my bills and be able to put some money into savings, she says. It’s opened up so many more doors for me and my kids. y kids are like, oh my god, we’re gonna go on a vacation? hat is that?’ eah, I miss the animals and the clients I always worked with, but as far as regrets, no. I don’t have any. iler and two other onderbrett workers, England avis and enny reitkreutz, started o as contractors that would go and trim weed at di erent grow sites. The three all decided to stay at onderbrett full time because they enjoyed it so much. reitkreutz is now a packaging lead she checks each eighth jar for what she calls the wow factor before it’s bo ed up and shipped o . he got a job in cannabis after su ering an an iety attack at the elderly care facility where she was working. uitting the job she worked for years was terrifying, but not nearly as scary as the looming an iety over working in healthcare during a pandemic. There was so much ghting in the office over being vaccinated or not vaccinated and wearing a mask, she says. And I don’t judge. I’m coming to work and doing what I have to do, but then I had an an iety attack that turned into a panic attack, and then I was out cold on the oor at work. omething caused me to black out. omething was wrong. omething was just sitting on my chest and I didn’t want to go back to work. There was too much an iety. efore she started trimming weed, reitkreutz worked at almart for a few months just to make ends meet. Going back to her old job was out of the uestion. I was never going to be homeless, and my kids were never going to go without food so it was just something I had to do, she says. The medical eld is all about politics. Here it’s a totally di erent atmosphere. Instead of just coming and doing the job, everybody is actually working toward the same goal. It’s nice to see everybody working as a team. he goes on packing ower buds into eighth jars with ease, no stress and no worries.

There are, perhaps, some misconceptions out there that people working with marijuana are sitting around getting lit all day, but that couldn’t be further from the truth at the onderbrett grow. Everyone here takes their job very seriously plus that would be a lot of money lost for onderbrett because their weed is not cheap.

The workers have become water, rolling past a rocky river basin of low wages and discontentment, toward life in a calm stream. n

“ I can actually support my family here and pay my bills and be able to put some money into savings. It’s opened up so many more doors for me and my kids.”

420 420 420 420 420 420 420 420 420 420 420 420 420 420 Late bloomer

Detroit’s late arrival to the recreational marijuana industry spells trouble

By Steve Neavling

The recreational marijuana

industry is booming in Michigan, exceeding $1.1 billion in annual sales and generating more than $100 million in new taxes a year.

But in Detroit, the state’s largest city, not a single dollar has been made since adult-use recreational cannabis sales became legal in December 2019.

And it could be many more months before etroit begins to reap bene ts from the lucrative industry.

Last week, Detroit City Council nally approved an ordinance that will allow recreational marijuana businesses to open in the city. But not everyone is celebrating.

If all goes as planned, which rarely happens in Detroit or in the marijuana industry, new recreational cannabis businesses won’t begin opening until late this year or early next year. That’s three years after the rst recreational businesses opened in other towns and cities, which have received millions of dollars in new tax revenue.

In total, 110 communities in Michigan have at least one recreational dispensary.

Dozens of them are in Detroit’s suburbs, and many inside the industry say there may already be too many dispensaries in the region. In other words, new dispensaries that open in Detroit will face extraordinary challenges to compete with each other and the suburbs.

“Detroit already missed out and lost those customers,” Jimmy Caudill, director of sales at The Reef, a medical cannabis dispensary on Eight Mile Road in Detroit, tells Metro Times. “All the dispensaries surrounding the city have had a chance to capitalize on (Detroit’s recreational ban) and grab new customers. It’s going to be harder for shops to regain those people.”

From first to last

More than a decade ago, Detroit was at the forefront of the medical marijuana industry. Within two years of voters approving medical marijuana in 2008, dozens of dispensaries began cropping up in Detroit, far more than any other community in Michigan.

Many of those businesses are still around today, but they are struggling. In total, Detroit has more than 70 medical cannabis dispensaries.

Now that recreational marijuana is legal, fewer people are getting medical cannabis cards because they cost money and take time to obtain.

The number of active medical cards fell from more than 264,000 in 2020 to fewer than 232,000 so far this year, a 12.2% decline, according to the state’s Marijuana Regulatory Agency (MRA).

Medical cannabis sales fell even harder, from $38.1 million in February 2021 to $26 million in February 2022, a 32% drop.

That has spelled serious trouble for the medical cannabis dispensaries in Detroit that have hung on, waiting for the city to allow recreational sales.

“The medical industry is dying,” former NBA player Al Harrington, who opened Viola Brands cannabis in southwest Detroit, tells Metro Times. “A lot of people come to Detroit for business opportunities, and they have to go to border towns to purchase cannabis. It’s killing all the current medical operators in the city. It’s putting a lot of pressure on their businesses because they are losing customers every day.”

In the early days of recreational marijuana sales, medical cannabis was far more inexpensive. That’s not the case anymore.

The average cost of an ounce of medical ower in ebruary was $229.22, compared to $267.20 for recreational ower during the same time period, according to the MRA. By contrast, the average cost of an ounce of medical ower in ebruary of this year was $144.18, compared to $160.10 for recreational ower.

Without recreational marijuana sales, the cash-strapped city continues to miss out on millions of tax dollars a year. With a 10% excise tax, recreational pot sales raised more than $111 million for communities, schools and roads.

In March, the state doled out $56,400 to communities for each dispensary within their borders. There is no excise tax for medical marijuana.

“The funding provided directly to local governments — and the thousands of jobs created across the state — show that Michigan is leading the way in the cannabis industry,” MRA Executive Director Andrew Brisbo said in a statement.

Not so in Detroit, however.

Detroit dispensaries like The Reef can soon sell adult-use cannabis. COURTESY PHOTO

Opting out

The Detroit City Council shocked the cannabis industry in November 2019 when it passed a last-minute ordinance preventing recreational businesses from opening.

The reasoning was well-intentioned: Detroit wanted to ensure that its longtime residents, who have been disproportionately impacted by the war on drugs, could be given priority to get involved in the industry before wealthy outsiders saturated the market. At the time, council members said the goal was to create new regulations by January 2020.

Instead, it took the council more than a year to draft an ordinance that would give licensing preferences to longtime Detroiters. But in June 2021, a federal judge ruled that the ordinance was probably unlawful because it “gives an unfair, irrational, and likely unconstitutional advantage to long-term Detroit residents over all other applicants.”

The council returned to the drawing board and took nine more months to approve a new ordinance, which creates two tracks for licenses so that “equity” and “non-equity” applicants aren’t competing with each other.

Under the new ordinance, a total of 100 retail licenses will be available, half of which will be reserved for social equity applicants.

“I am thankful that Detroit will nally join the municipalities in Michigan that have allowed adult-use cannabis licensing within its borders,” the ordinance’s sponsor, Council President Pro Tem James Tate, said in a statement. “But the goal has never been to simply have licensing within the city, but to create policy that works to address the inequities that so many Detroiters have experienced trying to pursue an opportunity in this industry.”

Trouble is, Detroiters are going to have a tough time making money this late in the industry, cannabis insiders say.

“It’s fantastic that Detroit is moving forward and recognizes that while they were on the forefront of the industry a few years ago, they have fallen behind,” says Mike P. DiLaura, chief of corporate operations and general counsel for House of Dank in Detroit.

“Detroit has really missed the mark. It’s really unfortunate.”

DiLaura believes the new ordinance is unlawful and will result in more lawsuits because he says the social equity component once again goes too far.

“With good intentions, the city is acting with economic protectionism,” he says. “While morally noble, it’s ultimately not lawful.”

As more time passes, opportunities for the city and its residents will continue to dwindle, cannabis insiders caution.

“The market is kind of saturated at this point,” Caudill says. “A lot of these dispensaries have the same products. It’s like Meijer and Kroger selling the same produce.”

At Viola, a medical cannabis dispensary in Detroit, Harrington hoped to create job opportunities for people of color. But getting stuck in the shrinking medical cannabis industry, he can’t hire more Black Detroiters until the city starts issuing recreational licenses.

“If we’re going to compete, we need to get to market now,” Harrington says. “At this point, it’s getting embarrassing.” n

420 420 420 420 420 420 420 420 420 420 420 420 420 420 An end to couch-lock Cannabis consumption lounges are coming

By Lee DeVito

Michigan’s adult-use

cannabis laws that went into e ect in allow for consumption lounge licenses, or public spaces where you’re allowed to get high, though we haven’t seen any yet that is, until now. ast month, Hot o ocial in Hazel ark became the state’s rst officially licensed cannabis consumption lounge. ure, you could always do what people have always done, which is get high at home, or discreetly, like while taking a secluded walk. ut smoking cannabis in public is frowned upon, and it’s e plicitly illegal at cannabis dispensaries, so you can’t try before you buy. f course, the pandemic put a pause on indoor gathering for the past two years, making consumption lounges a low priority in an otherwise booming industry. ut Nowfal Akash, chief information officer of Hot o ocial’s parent company Trucenta, says it was also a matter of the right conditions lining up. or Hot o ocial, that was the pot friendly culture in Hazel ark. I think Hazel ark’s on the frontline, not just in cannabis, but just being progressive in general, Akash says, pointing out that the suburban community’s voters approved of roposal , which legalized cannabis for adult use, by . one of the highest shows of support in the state.

And it’s not just pot that Hazel ark residents are open minded about. ast month, its ity ouncil voted unanimously to decriminalize psilocybin or magic mushrooms and so called entheogenic plants known for producing psychedelic e ects, like peyote and T becoming the third municipality in ichigan to do so after nn Arbor and etroit. hen you have a city that has alignment with the administration, the council, and the community, I think you see things happening like you do there, Akash says, adding, e’re e cited to be to be the rst to to be licensed in the state of ichigan, and to give Hazel ark that title.

Hot o ocial is located at ohn d., a drag that features a number of cannabis dispensaries and other related businesses. That includes . .T., an old school head shop that sells bongs, tie dye T shirts, and other paraphernalia that set up shop there in the late ’ s.

Akash says the Hot o ocial building previously housed several di erent businesses, most recently a former lawn maintenance garage. The backyard was basically a scrapyard, he says, and the company is now in the process of cleaning it up and building an outdoor atrium. I think it’s probably factual that if we would have demolished it and rebuilt it, it would have cost us a lot less and we would have got it done a lot faster, he says. ut we were trying to preserve some history.

He adds, e did give it more of that garage y feel, that industrial feel. I think it integrates well with the city, and also works well with the culture and the vibe. The color scheme is very That ’70s Show ish.

The , s uare foot space is painted green and has a number of couches and high tops. Akash says the furniture can be easily recon gured to accommodate a variety of events. The space also includes a , s uare foot patio.

Akash primarily sees Hot o ocial as an educational opportunity for customers to try new products. hile the law allows for consumption lounges to let their guests bring their own weed, Akash says Hot o ocial will partner with reeze, a nearby dispensary that Trucenta also owns, to provide cannabis to the site.

Akash thinks consumption lounges that are partnered with dispensaries is the model moving forward. These are completely necessary in our ecosystem, he says. I mean, when you talk about the only place you can legally smoke is your home you can’t drive, you can’t do it in public, you can’t do it in an apartment so if you’re going to provide a safe product, you need safe access to consume it.

The venue has hosted a few small events already, Akash says. In terms of types of people, we’ve already e perienced the full spectrum, from people wearing suits all the way down to people wearing onverse, he says. I think the cannabis community is diverse, and there’s no limitations. e’re in a position to welcome any and all that are looking to have a good time and do it in a safe way.

Akash says Hot o ocial is also trying to connect with rideshare services like Uber and yft to give customers a safe ride home.

He adds, I think it’s going to be everybody from the canna curious to the e perts. There’s a full spectrum, and we’re going to have sta there to educate and hold people’s hands if necessary, or just kind of stay out of the way let people do their thing.

He says he hopes to open up to the public in the summer, and envisions Hot o ocial as hosting everything from ticketed comedy performances to corporate retreats. They’re already getting re uests to host cannabis infused weddings and birthday parties, he says.

There are talks of opening other consumption lounges around the state. There were a lot of cities’ mayors and councilpeople that came through a couple of the fundraising events that we had there last week or the week before, and they are all very e cited to start talks about potentially having these in their cities, he says. As more cities opt in, and more opportunities open up, I think there’s de nitely discussion to look at e panding in the right city.

He adds, I think these things are necessary, and as time goes on, and as cities kind of see how these things actually operate, I think there’ll be a lot more open to allowing more of these. on ilberstein, co founder, president, and chief nancial officer of a consumption lounge concept called ud’s lace, says his company plans to take its model national, allowing for people to operate franchises across the country.

Though it has not opened any consumption lounges yet, the company is actively looking for a partner to enter the ichigan market, he says, with eyes on the Ann Arbor or etroit areas. e’ve got to get one open, and then things will e plode for us on the franchising side, he predicts.

The company is also looking at opening in other states with varying degrees of cannabis laws, including alifornia, Nevada, olorado, ashington, lorida, New ork, New ersey, and Illinois. ilberstein says the company envisions more of a gym membership model. e didn’t want to be like a tarbucks where you could buy a cup of co ee and spend all day in there and turn it into your office, he says. ispensary owners who will say they don’t understand how a consumption lounge can make any money, well, we’ve got a model that makes a lot of money, and part of that is we have multiple revenue streams. Those various revenue streams could be monthly or annual memberships, in addition to one time door fees for non members. The company would partner with cannabis brands to provide retail products, he says, as well as restaurants to o er food and beverages.

The idea of a national cannabis consumption lounge chain might not be all that far fetched. Earlier this month, the U. . House passed the arijuana pportunity, einvestment, and E pungement E Act, which would decriminalize cannabis at the federal level and also e punge or resentence incarcerated people with cannabis related criminal records. It was only the second time in years that ongress has considered ending cannabis prohibition. A similar measure passed the House in only to languish in the epublican controlled enate. hile the new enate has signaled a willingness to prioritize legalizing pot, the emocrats only have a slim majority, so it’s unclear whether it will actually nally happen anytime soon. ut legalizing cannabis at the federal level would help a chain like ud’s lace, allowing for interstate transport and banking. ilberstein says he believes it’s only a matter of time. asically, it’s an opportunity to get in on the ground oor of a whole new industry that is going to be huge, he says. ure, people could just get high at home. ou can also drink alcohol at home. All you’ve got to do is look at the bar industry, he says. ou pay a lot less to buy it at a store and drink it at home than you do at buying your drinks in a bar and drinking in a bar. ut there’s more than , bars in the U. . And that’s where cannabis is headed. n

420 420 420 420 420 420 420 420 420 420 420 420 420 420 A homegrown, pot-infused music fest Spark in the Park is plotting a new cannabis event for this June

By Lee DeVito

Sure, people have probably

been getting high at music festivals since time immemorial, but thanks to Michigan’s adult-use cannabis laws, officially sanctioned pot infused music events are on the way — as long as local municipalities allow them.

An event called “Spark in the Park” is planned for pot-friendly Hazel Park’s Green Acres Park on Saturday, June 18 and Sunday, June 19. City Council was expected to vote on it on Tuesday, after this issue went to press.

A music festival, Spark in the Park is being organized by the Michigan Cannabis Association, owned and operated by the Detroit-based Cannabis Counsel Law Firm.

Holice P. Wood, a booking agent and longtime cannabis activist, says he wants to create an event that harks back to metro Detroit’s classic rock era.

“In the ’60s and the ’70s, Detroit and local suburbs were lled with outdoor parks, and acts like Sonic’s Rendezvous Band, the Up, the MC5, and Iggy and the Stooges played these parks,” he says. “We’re bringing that back.”

The planned lineup on Saturday includes a mix of Motor City rock ’n’ roll (with acts like Thornetta Davis, Johnny Bee & the Murder Hornets, Pharaohs, and GiGi, a new project by Detroit Cobras guitarist Mary Restrepo), as well as national acts like Subatomic Sound System (the backing band of dub mastermind Lee “Scratch” Perry), the Rumble (made up of members of Grammy-nominated New Orleans funk band Cha Wa), and reggae great Bob Marley’s son, Julian Marley.

Sunday’s lineup is shaping to be more hip-hop-oriented, with local acts Mollywap, My Detroit Players, Kid Vishus, Nick Speed, and Trick Trick, as well as national acts Ghostface Killah and Raekwon.

“It was important for me, during the programming, that Detroit really be shown,” Wood says, adding, “We’re trying to satisfy four or ve generations of people that represent the cannabis community.”

Wood is billing the Spark in the ark event as a ichigan’s rst craft cannabis consumption and retail music festival.”

A number of smaller events have been held around the state. But Wood says they are aiming for a crowd of 4,200 cannabis enthusiasts, and believes the event has the potential to grow — not just in Hazel Park, but beyond.

“Ultimately, our goal is to take it to all of the green states,” he says. “We want to make this show happen, and get a good template so we can go to all of the green states and do the ‘Super Bowl’ of cannabis competitions.”

This year, the festival would ll somewhat of a void in the local cannabis event scene. Since 2011, High Times magazine has run a Cannabis Cup event in Michigan, a competition that doled out awards to local cannabis companies and growers and also included high pro le musical entertainment. But the event was only for medical marijuana patients until 2019, when adult-use cannabis events became legal. It was then canceled for the last two years due to the pandemic, causing High Times to switch to a “People’s Choice” model without the music festival component. This year’s High Times Cannabis Cup starts on April 16, when more than 3,000 judging kits will be sold on a rst come, rst served basis at participating dispensaries to anyone who wants to serve as a judge.

Meanwhile, in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, the local cannabis chain the Fire Station is planning a “Camp Cannabis” music festival in Marquette. The event is being billed as the U. .’s rst official cannabis consumption event, slated for Friday, Oct. 7 and Saturday, Oct. 8, a time chosen because the city’s cannabis event ordinance prohibits events being held during the peak season.

The Fire Station owner Stash Wasik says the company decided to throw a cannabis event because Marquette had authorized them.

“The city allows them, and most of them don’t,” he says. “Most municipalities don’t allow that. So we wanted to take advantage of that.”

He adds, “We basically thought, OK, this is a great opportunity for us to bring people together and do something.”

He says a lineup of national music and comedy acts is anticipated, though none have been announced yet.

“It just ended up snowballing and getting much larger than we expected, which we are really excited about, just based on the demand, and like what people wanted to see,” he says. “It has increased our workload, and there’s going to be a lot of infrastructure that is going to have to go into something of this size. It’s not something we’ve done before.”

Stosh is billing the event as a “music, arts, and culture festival with cannabis,” he says. Cannabis retail vendors will be on site, where people can purchase and consume pot at the event.

The event is slated for Tourist Park, the site of the long-running Hiawatha Music Festival, an acoustic music festival held since 1979.

Based on Hiawatha Music Festival, Stosh is aiming for a crowd of at least 3,500 people for Camp Cannabis, though he thinks it could draw as many as 5,000.

“We haven’t seen anything done in the state to this scale for a cannabis event,” he says. “We’re happy to be one of the pioneers.”

He adds, This is de nitely going to be the biggest music event that the city Marquette has ever seen.” n

New Orleans funk band the Rumble is booked to perform at Spark in the Park, a cannabis-friendly music fest. TIFFANY ANDERSON

420 420 420 420 420 420 420 420 420 420 420 420 420 420 A bud and breakfast

Welcome to the Copper House, a 420-friendly community center in Detroit

By Alex Washington

Picture this: you’re invited

to a backyard dinner party on Detroit’s west side. When you arrive, there’s a beautifully decorated table, a DJ playing music, and a mobile bar. There’s also an eclectic mix of people ranging in professions, race, gender identity, and style, who are all there for the same reason — cannabis.

Jess Jackson and her wife Cara Jackson own the Copper House, a “bud and breakfast” located in Detroit’s Bagley neighborhood. The couple drew inspiration for the Copper House after backpacking through Europe, a trip that eventually resulted in their engagement. Throughout their travels, they stayed in a variety of short term rentals ranging from Abed and breakfasts to hostels, and brought the concept back to Detroit.

“What we loved about the hostel experience is that it was very communal, and that there was kind of like a community ambassador around,” Jess says. “But the concern was we’re queer, and we’re gay, and we don’t know if we can be a ectionate around these people.

That concern is a part of what led Jess to decide that the Bagley neighborhood was the right area for the Jacksons to begin laying permanent roots. The area is relatively close to Ferndale, the Michigan city most known for being LGBTQ+ friendly, and Bagley itself is known for being accepting as well.

“This neighborhood historically has a lot of intersections, that’s why Hotter than July, the Black (LGBTQ+) pride festival, happens in Bagley at our park, because there’s a lot of Black queer history in this neighborhood,” says Jess. I speci cally was interested in agley because of the adjacency to Ferndale, because of the queer community, because it is a Black community, and because I love the architecture.”

When it comes to the Copper House, calling it a “bud and breakfast” perhaps oversimpli es all work and community-building that the Jacksons actually o er. ess describes herself as a community architect and community activist. hile nishing her aster of Business Administration degree at the University of Delaware, her sorority sister launched a CBD apothecary line that centered on using cannabis for medicinal properties as it related to anxiety and depression. At the same time, her sorority sister also centered conversations around social equity and cannabis justice, a topic that caused Jess to research more about the cannabis industry.

“What I loved about the industry was that it’s a ground oor opportunity to kind of grow with the industry over time,” says Jess. “I also really like that it weaved together my interests of equity and justice. Social equity is jargon within the industry — folks kind of know that there are some corporate social responsibilities to repair the harm from the past.”

It also helped that Cara has a green thumb in more ways than one. She holds a degree in wildlife ecology and conservation.

“She was already looking into green industries, and is very passionate about sustainability within green industries and agriculture,” says Jess. “We get to see both sides. She’s growing, and I’m in the executive team driving equity strategy, both internally and externally.”

While the Copper House is often rented as an cannabis-friendly event space, the acksons o er their own programming that educates people on a variety of cannabis-related industry topics. The Copper House launched its “Homegrown” series just before the pandemic began in February 2020, and resumed after restrictions were lifted. The purpose is to help teach people what sort of things they can do with cannabis in the comfort of their own homes, including teaching people how to grow their own plants.

“We partnered with a caregiver, and we were able to get soil sponsored, nutrition sponsored, and supplies to start your outdoor grow,” says Jess. “We taught a class on what’s legal in order to grow in your yard, knowing that you have to do it within a privacy fence, and we were able to give out 25 grow kits to start.”

As for the future of the Copper House, Jess plans to expand on the foundation that she’s already built. They recently nished the 1,000-square-foot basement studio, complete with a private kitchenette, bathroom, and entry, which sleeps up to 10 people. Jess says she wants to create a creative residency program complete with brand ambassadors that can continue to promote and grow the Copper House. Long-term, Jess also wants to open a holistic healing resort in Idlewild, a Jim Crow-era resort town for African Americans also known as the “Black Eden of Michigan,” where she could host holistic healing retreats. There are also goals of expanding Copper House to other cities.

“I want a portfolio of Copper Houses across the nation,” says Jess. “We selected northwest Detroit to kind of honor Black queer history here in this neighborhood. There might be other places that honor di erent types of history, and I want to partner with local communities to kind of build that model and that space.”

Jess and Cara Jackson at the Copper House.

COURTESY PHOTO

“ What I loved about the industry was that it’s a ground-floor opportunity to kind of grow with the industry over time.”

More information is available at copperhousedet.com.