Although vape products are finally being approved by the state, several stores are still unable to offer them. All of the locations in Ann Arbor were unable to offer vape options for the first full week of recreational sales. One of those stores was GreenStone Provisions.
“A lot of people are disappointed without being able to be purchase vapes,” Maggie Smith, a manager at GreenStone explained to me. “I think it’s because everyone’s so busy these days. Cartridges provide a quick, low-profile, easy-to-use way to medicate or get high. People are bummed out about losing that convenience. But we’ve always been smoking cannabis without vape cartridges.
We don’t know what vaping does to us, especially if it’s not food grade. I think more research should be put into it. I did have a patient say the other day, “I can’t believe they banned vape cartridges, that’s the safest way to smoke.” It’s probably not the safest way to smoke cannabis. It depends on what company you’re using. Some of these companies have had lead, or mercury, or certain type of metal issues with their atomizers and hardware. That’s something to take into consideration.
Why Are Carts In Such High Demand?
“The cartridge is almost the perfect product,” Maggie said. “It’s potent, some of them hardly even smell, and you can fit it in your pocket. They’re great, but it’s a matter of weeding out the bad things about them. There shouldn’t be any preservatives or cutting agents. Mostly, the black market is at fault.
“We’ve had a lot of people coming in asking for vape cartridges. Some people even said they thought it was just for medical. A lot of them are turning to concentrates. We’ve sold more glass, like a rig, a nectar collector, a dab straw, torches, then we ever sold to our medical patients. I think it’s the unavailability of vape cartridges and the market opening up to new kinds of consumers. Also, when we have sold out of flower for the day we’ll take ten or twelve more people purely for concentrates. Some people can’t walk away empty-handed after waiting for 3 hours.
“This ban is so backward, this is how we got in this situation in the first place. Carts from the black market were what people were having issues with. So now they’re going to pull all of this product, which has already been tested, although not for Vitamin E Acetate, that no one has reported issues with, and just bleed customers to the black market. Why does it take stoners to look at these issues and say, “you guys are doing this all wrong?”
The state of Michigan has pulled all vape products from the market for retesting. Vitamin E Acetate, which the CDC linked to the vaping crisis, is why we’re retesting. All legal cannabis products in Michigan already go through testing.
Update From Claw Concentrates, Leading Michigan Concentrate Brand
I talked with the founder of Claw Concentrates, Andrew Goldstein, about how this has affected his business.
“This impacts all of our employees, this impacts me as the owner, and this impacts our sales staff,” Goldstein explained. “Nobody has any work. We’ve done 0 dollars in sales in the last ten days. Retail stores are doing 30-40% less business than they were two weeks ago. But it’s for the best that we do more testing. The proper way to handle this would have been to test all products moving forward. The department could take random samples from products that have been tested before. Their concern might have been bringing in all the rec customers before they knew whether people were using Vitamin E Acetate.”
When asked about the necessity of this recall, Goldstein replied, “I personally answer most of the community questions and email questions that come to Claw as the Founder of Claw, which started in 2015. We’ve never had someone say that there’s been a health issue. We believe all our ingredients are safe. We use cannabis-derived terpenes and cannabis distillate. It’s a pretty straightforward mix. I think the problems are going to come in with black market cutting agents. The reason that there haven’t been deaths earlier is that the Vitamin E Acetate wasn’t popular as a cutting agent until recently. It came onto the vape scene about a year ago. I think that’s what has caused the problem.”
The Emergence of Vitamin E Acetate
This crisis has been ongoing since the summer. The CDC has stated that Vitamin E Acetate likely played a roll in the severity of it. But, it’s only been around since recently.
“All the terpene centers were getting complaints from customers that they weren’t able to dilute the product enough,” Goldstein said. “They were looking for a thickening agent. Some of the terpene companies started selling Vitamin E Oil as an organic solution. That’s been the issue. It’s a newer thing.
“The point of using thickener is to dilute a product. It’s been well-documented the people using Vitamin E Acetate are packaging companies like Dank Vapes, Exotic Carts, Cereal Carts, stuff like that. The black market has $10 1-gram carts that are shipped overseas that all come from black market factories. Then there are the people making carts in their basement and using Vitamin E Acetate. Vitamine E Acetate costs $30 a liter. A liter of Claw’s terpenes is $12,000. You can think about distillate being $12,000 as well. If you’re a kid trying to make money, it’s a lot cheaper to put Vitamin E Oil in a cartridge up to 30-40%, then use the more expensive ingredients to fill the rest of it. It’s a way of making your product go further by cutting it.
“I know we’ve never used any of that stuff. There’s no reason to dilute it. You’d have to have a low-grade product to want to use that. I feel that one of the highest concerns with the Vitamin E right now would be in the untested CBD products. CBD vapes are entirely unregulated. Even in the Michigan market, they are considered an accessory. They don’t have to do the statewide testing, even now. I would caution people about smoking CBD vapes.”
How The Vape Ban Will End
The vaping ban has cost the state of Michigan an incredible amount in taxes while simultaneously supporting black market sales.
“I’m sure that if the state were able to do it over, they would probably handle it differently,” Goldstein said. “But this is the business that we’re in. They set the hoops, and we have to go high. That’s the way it is.
Overall I’d say that the MRA has done an excellent job. It’s been a pleasure working with them. I think Andrew Brisbo is the best person for the job, so I feel like Michigan is lucky to have him in charge. I truly believe that.
“You need to have your formulations for any new batches approved by the state. Once the formulation gets a certificate of analysis, they allow you to sell again. The process applies to processors and for retail.”
How The Vape Ban Affected Everyone At Claw
“We’ve been talking with the state every day. We have a couple of people that work at Exclusive that work with the state. Their job is to help guide Michigan into making the proper decision through the information that we provide. They also get clarification on all the different moving parts, like the specifics behind testing requirements. It’s a lot of work to be in the legal market. But ultimately I think this policy is for the best, it’s just an unfortunate time and unfortunate way of how they went about it.
“I know we haven’t filled any vapes in almost two weeks. That’s a majority of the business done in our processing facility. I know there are fewer hours this week than normal, and last week.”
“Nobody cares about the owners and that’s fine, but it does impact the hourly employees who depend on a full paycheck every week. I think that those are the people that are loosing the most in this picture.”
“We anticipate having at least some products back on the market by the end of next week, but this is a hypothetical situation. There’s no hard proof either way. We’ve submitted our formulations for approval, so we’re waiting for them to approve our formulations.”
The patience Goldstein and Claw embody paid off. As of Monday, some products have cleared testing for both medical and recreational sales.
“Currently, I think we have the best medical system in America.”
The Story Away From Ann Arbor
5 miles north of the Ohio border, Michigan Supply & Provisioning’s Morenci location opened for recreational sales on December 1st. I spoke with Regional Director Brian Thienel about their experience.
“Before we were able to get people in and out within 15 minutes,” he said. “Now with rec, you’re looking at about 30 minutes, sometimes longer.” This wait is less brutal than those in Ann Arbor, although Michigan Supply & Provisions have attracted quite the crowd.
“I’ve had somebody come from South Carolina that was driving through,” Thienel said. “It’s kind of a mix of people. We’re getting a lot of first-timers. They have a lot of questions. What the flowers are, what are their effects. A lot of people from Ohio, but also all the states wrapping around Michigan.”
In addition to the blessing of short lines, Michigan Supply & Provisioning has been able to offer cartridges to consumers. “We were able to reintroduce 2 carts back into the market,” Thienel recalled. “That was huge. We had two strains that we were able to get retested and certified by the state through the new protocol and guidelines. That’s huge for us also. It’s our Ozone cart and Era Pro. Era Pro is an independent company that launched with us in the marketplace.”
While Ann Arbor is an excellent case study on what the future holds for recreational cannabis in Michigan, Michigan Supply & Provisioning will be instrumental in making that future. “I have locations coming soon, Detroit, Battle Creek Area, Ann Arbor, two in Grand Rapids, Traverse City, all over the state,” Theinel promised. “We’re targeting the early part of the new year for these to come online. It depends on the cities whether or not they’ll be recreational.”
