#KahliBuds #MMJ #CBD #THC

This story was reprinted with permission from Crain’s Detroit and written by Dustin Walsh. 

Despite Michigan’s bountiful, and inexpensive, legal market that sold more than $3 billion of marijuana last year, Michigan’s illicit market is thriving, according to the Michigan State Police.

Just last week, the MSP’s Marijuana & Tobacco Investigation Section took down potentially one of the state’s largest illegal marijuana grow operations on record.

On March 7, the MSP executed warrants on a single operation at four commercial buildings in Livonia, resulting in the seizure of more than 6,000 marijuana plants, 2,500 pounds of psilocybin mushroom bars, and 700 pounds of marijuana flower, according to a press release from the MSP.

The marijuana flower alone has a legal market value of more than $1 million.

The operations did not hold any legal marijuana operators’ licenses, according to the MSP.

First Lt. Tom Kish, commander of the specialized unit in the MSP, said large-scale illegal operations like in Livonia persist due to Michigan’s weak laws on illicit marijuana.

In October last year, the state’s Court of Appeals ruled that illegal grow operations could only net misdemeanor charges after the state legalized recreational marijuana in 2019, easing laws to alleviate the harsh penalties faced during prohibition.

This has led to larger criminal activity in the sector, Kish said.

“These larger grows are becoming a big issue,” Kish said. “I can tell you the perception was that black market marijuana would go away when the adult-use market came online. That’s not true. The black market in Michigan is a huge problem and it’s a booming illegal marketplace. That’s largely because of our penalties, or lack thereof.”

Kish said his unit has seized more than 10,000 illegally-grown marijuana plants in the last 30 days alone and is executing warrants several times a week.

The illicit market does not adhere to safety and testing standards — “I was on site for the warrants in Livonia and I can tell you the facilities were disgusting,” Kish said. He also said the business is being dominated by those also involved in human trafficking and other more heinous crimes: the MSP often finds foreign nationals effectively living in indentured servitude to these operators who traffic them into the U.S.

“We have a lot of foreign nationals that are connected to these illegal grow ops,” Kish said. “Some from China, South America, or Mexico; people who are trafficked here to produce or procure black market marijuana. Many don’t speak English and are forced to process flower or tend to plants under terrible living conditions. It’s becoming a serious problem.”

Kish confirmed foreign nationals were discovered during the execution of the warrants in Livonia, but the MSP and federal authorities are still working to determine whether they were trafficked or have a larger connection to the illegal operations.

The marijuana tested from the Livonia operations also tested positive for banned pesticides as well as heavy metals and molds.

“It may be cheaper, but these products are very hazardous for human consumption,” Kish said.

The illicit market operators resort to trafficked labor and illegal pesticides to undercut the state’s legal market, which has become one of the most inexpensive markets in the country.

In January, the average cost of an ounce of recreational marijuana was $93.20, or about $1,500 a pound.

Legal market marijuana is very popular in Michigan. The state sold more than $240 million worth of marijuana just last month, or about 428,00 pounds of flower and edibles and 675,000 ounces of infused liquid.

Enforcement of illicit market marijuana has been a hot topic in the legal market for the last few years as legal operators faced a massive price collapse due to oversupply, which many blamed on the illicit product in the market.

Enforcement was a big reason Gov. Gretchen Whitmer hired current Cannabis Regulatory Agency Executive Director Brian Hanna in September 2022. The enforcement issue had been growing, so Hanna was brought in to show how serious the state was about handling the issue. Hanna was a former analyst in the MSP’s computer crimes division and had previously spent more than four years at the CRA as an investigations manager.

But for the MSP, cracking down on illegal market marijuana remains a challenge, not only under state law but in finding willing prosecutors, Kish said. Since legalization, many prosecutors across the state have been unwilling to prosecute illicit marijuana operations, fearing legal gray areas and lax penalties.

“Prosecutors have varying opinions on how to pursue these investigations or whether to do so at all,” Kish said. “We certainly enjoy working in areas where we have prosecutors who want to work with us and don’t shy away from cases like this.”

While Michigan’s illegal marijuana grow penalties are weak, these operations also exist outside of the tax code and are usually brought up on tax violations. The Livonia operation would have likely owed hundreds of thousands of dollars per year in taxes and the operators will likely be prosecuted for such.

“The legal operations in Michigan, they literally spend millions of dollars to come into the market legally and do so that produce products that are safe, tested and taxed,” Kish said. “These black market products are offered for sale are not any of those things and it’s a huge problem to the licensed market and not fair to them.”

The post Police bust one of Michigan’s largest illegal marijuana grow operations to date appeared first on Green Market Report.

420GrowLife

via www.KahliBuds.com

Dustin Walsh, KahliBuds, 420GrowLife