Industry » GEORGE BRIKHO

Michigan Growers: STOP GETTING PLAYED FOR FOOLS!

Apr 042025

It has pained me to watch what has happened to the marijuana industry in Michigan in the past several years. This was all so very preventable, and it shows how Big Business will ruin and corrupt everything it touches.

When the caregivers and the patients ruled the day, there was a great and bountiful cannabis marketplace in Michigan. Patients could get high quality medicine tailored to them for free. Small growers made enough to put food on their families’ plates. The industry thrived, and the wealth was spread around equitably.

But then the big money mafia came in to gang rape the industry. Legalization, undeniably a great thing in many respects, unfortunately opened the door for these interests to commit mayhem. They paid off the lawmakers. They bribed the regulators. They paid off seedy lobbyists like Steven Linder to do their bidding. They pushed for legislation that was supposed to give the big money players a monopoly over the industry.

But things didn’t go according to plan for the big money mafia. They didn’t get the legislation they wanted. The lawmakers who they bribed got prosecuted and thrown in prison. They were not able to game the system effectively, and now they are losing on their investment.

Big money operations overexpanded. They got too greedy. They built too many facilities. Dispensaries opened on every street corner. Now, they are losing money and being forced to close shop. Their arrogance got the better of them, and they are scrambling not to go bankrupt.

And who are they trying to squeeze to prop up their failed business plans? The growers.

Growers are being squeezed by dispensaries who want them to sell their fine product to them practically at cost so they can mark it up and keep their mansions, their fancy cars and their massive coke & whores budgets intact.

My question to growers who are going along with this is: Where is your self-respect?

Where is your dignity? Why are you complying with these lowlifes who are screwing you? Why are you playing along with their charade?

There are dispensaries out there that will pay you what your cannabis is worth. Those of us in the community who are not big players but have focused on building a small number of dispensaries and running them right will take care of you.

Moral and just cannabis entrepreneurs who have built our businesses on relationships, on getting the best product out to our people, continue to expand even within this tumultuous market. Our customers know that we are for the people and have not forgotten the cannabis industry’s humble roots. They support us knowing that we support the community and do not help the big money’s gangbang of the industry.

Growers: It’s time to let the big money hustlers die on the vine. They created their own peril. Now it is time to let them choke. They got greedy and now they must pay. This is the free market in action. Those of us who do right by others can keep the cannabis industry going for generations to come without the presence of these assholes.

Let them go into bankruptcy. We do not need continuous growth of massive dispensary conglomerates. We do not need the expansion of corporate cannabis. Many great products have been discontinued because of needless regulations. Many patients no longer have their caregivers who would tailor their cultivation of life-saving medicine directly to the needs of the individual because these greedy bastards flooded the marketplace and made competition unsustainable.

It is time to piss on these big money players while they are down. They should not receive any sort of bailout. They are reaping what they have sown. The day has come to pay the fiddler. We should be laying out jagged rocks to cushion their fall from grace. They are losing badly in the market they created and attempted to rig in their favor. They have been hoisted on their own petard due to their own lack of wisdom and foresight. Let their failure serve as an example for others that unethical business practices will eventually hurt you in the end.

Growers, it is time to start boycotting these big money giants. Whatever money they are offering you now will keep you in bondage. Come to Big George. Come to small business dispensary operations that are thriving. As we continue to grow intelligently and sustainably, the giants will fall around us, and the people will be better off as a result.

Goliath Is Falling: The Caregivers Shall Inherit the Michigan Cannabis Industry

Uncategorized No Responses »

Jul 132022

Another week has passed, and there is more good news for the caregivers.

Lume announced earlier this week that they are shuttering four of their storefronts. Lume is one of the largest dispensary networks in the state, and they abruptly announced they would be closing their shops.

Lume made the announcement on Monday through its public relations firm Byrum & Fisk. Remember, it is Mark Fisk who supplanted Steve Linder as the head of the Michigan Cannabis Manufacturers Association. This is the monopoly group at war with the caregivers trying to mandate total control of the state’s cannabis industry through onerous legislation.

Lume is owned by Bob and Don Barnes, who are the owners of Belle Tire. They could be nice well-intentioned guys for all that I know, but their lack of understanding of the cannabis industry has caused them some hardships. They came into the industry looking to make money, looking to maximize profits, and trying to corner the market. At some level, I can respect the hustle, but overambition and lack of understanding of the cannabis community has hurt them.

The storefronts offered by Lume are clean, well-maintained, professional and impressive. The supply, however, is lacking. The prices are often exorbitant. In an industry that is experiencing massive deflation, the model pushed by the Barnes boys is completely nonviable. Why would a consumer who can buy some nugs from his local dealer cheaper than ever waste his time on overpriced nugs that do not compare in quality to what is offered through the black or grey markets? It just doesn’t make sense.

Cannabis consumers were used to buying from their dealer for years as they heroically used civil disobedience to undermine prohibition. They have no problem going back to that model, which has proven to be effective and built the cannabis industry into America’s top cash crop, rather than pay exorbitant costs. The caregiver model replaced the black market in Michigan and was effective because it did not overregulate the market. People could grow in their homes, and the overages could end up in medical marijuana dispensaries. This system worked for everyone, except of course for the tax man.

During the golden age of medical marijuana dispensaries in the early years after medical marijuana was legalized, there was immense innovation. The prices were low, the consumer was happy, but plenty of entrepreneurs were making money during a time of recession and tremendous economic uncertainty. And contrary to the propaganda spread by cops and other reefer haters, there were no problems that were being caused in communities. An industry was booming, and it would have kept booming, except for the regulations that came in.

The marijuana industry is fueled by a core of people who have great loyalty to growers who they know provide the best product. They would never buy corporate weed in a million years. There is also the problem of unlimited Class C licenses. Myself and my former lobbying group, EverGreen Management, argued to cap these Class C licenses. We were ignored by the lawmakers. They spit in our faces. They listened to the Big Money Bastards, and now we are all suffering as a result.

The problem with giving the government regulatory authority over an industry is they do not stop at sensible regulation. They will use whatever initial sensible regulations to get a foothold in on an industry, and before long, they and the interests who own them dominate it. There are many other industries (think Energy, Beer & Wine, etc.) that operate under this sort of monopoly. But cannabis will never be one of them. Too many lessons have been learned during prohibition. Too much sacrifice has been made for it to be swallowed up.

This is why the corporations find themselves at an unexpected impasse right now, and they are finding their economic power is rapidly waning in Lansing when lawmakers see the industry hemorrhaging cash Those of us involved with the Michigan Caregivers Association (and all similar-minded activists who have been in the trenches fighting the takeover) helped put a chink in the armor of the bad guys. We put up the road block that caused them to stumble. And stumble, they have. The national recession has not helped them, but it is their own greed that was ultimately their undoing.

As much as we would like to take absolute and total credit for their failure, they have been their own worst enemies. They saw the cannabis industry as nothing more than cash cow that they could corner and milk endlessly for their own delught. The corporate villains came into Michigan looking to gang rape another industry. Instead, they have realized that there are limits to their ambition. We saw it with Terrapin, and now we are seeing it with Lume. This industry will always belong to this people, and the corporate raiders are finding it out about the consequences of trying to overthrow it.

At Cannabash over the weekend, we heard that the booths for High Life and Skymint were eerily dead. These firms have taken massive reputational hits for selling out the caregivers and being part of the corporate takeover of the Michigan cannabis industry. The rebel spirit within the cannabis industry is still alive, and educated consumers can make a big difference. From the chatter to the boycotts to the legislative fights to our aggressive media campaign to expose the monopolists, it is all coming together to have an amazing impact.

The caregivers are suffering right now, but ultimately will win because they provide the best product. Through the compassionate relationship between caregivers and their patients, they know how to tailor the product to the unique needs of the individual. The recreational system cannot compete with that. The love behind the caregivers system is something to behold, and educated consumers will continue to appreciate that and reward that proven system as the corporations fall.

There is a place for dispensaries but only if they operate under honest principles within the marketplace and work alongside caregivers. There is enough demand for dispensaries to give convenient options to casual cannabis users while caregivers provide the best quality product to true connoisseurs and medical patients who need it. But there is no room for the corporate kingpins who hate competition and hate liberty. They will be snuffed out, and this is just the beginning of their end.