Michigan’s Market Isn’t Broken: It’s Built to Break

By Mike Khemmoro

People keep saying Michigan’s cannabis market is “broken.” Prices are collapsing, shelves are overflowing with flower, and operators are getting squeezed. But let’s be real: this isn’t just Michigan. Every state ends up here. Too much supply, too many rules, and not enough demand diversity.

The problem isn’t simply oversupply; it’s monoculture. With unlimited licenses and investors chasing the same playbook, the market is flooded with flower. When everyone sells the same product, prices collapse.

In 2020, Michigan’s wholesale flower averaged around $2,000 a pound. Today, it often trades for under $800. That swing doesn’t just hurt margins — it wipes out entire businesses. The same thing happened in Oregon and Oklahoma. Both states overshot demand with too much production and now their markets are defined by consolidation, closures, and a race to the bottom. Michigan is just the latest chapter of the same story.

Why Extracts Don’t Fix Anything

Some people will tell you the answer is to turn surplus flower into vapes, edibles, or concentrates. Sounds clever — but it doesn’t fix oversupply, it compounds it.

One pound of flower might move through the market once. But processed into oil, that same pound can fuel thousands of vape hits or infused products. You’ve stretched the supply without creating new customers. Demand hasn’t changed — it’s the same people consuming the same cannabis, just in a different form.

I’ve sat in meetings where “more extracts” was pitched as the solution, and every time it’s clear: that’s not demand creation. That’s just rearranging the chairs on a sinking ship.

The Real Fix: Build Demand

The only sustainable fix is to build demand, not just repackage supply. Michigan needs more spaces where people can experience cannabis in different ways: lounges, festivals, wellness retreats. These aren’t luxuries; they’re demand engines. They normalize cannabis, open doors for new consumers, and help shift the market away from being flower-only.

Imagine alcohol if you could only buy a bottle from the liquor store and drink it at home. No bars. No concerts. No clubs. No tailgates. That’s basically what cannabis looks like today in Michigan. Forcing everything into private use is a demand killer. People need spaces where cannabis is part of culture, not just a solo activity behind closed doors.

Think about it — someone who tries a cannabis beverage at a barbecue is a potential new category customer. Someone who discovers a low-dose gummy that helps them sleep is a repeat buyer. Someone who finds tinctures or topicals at a wellness retreat begins to see cannabis as more than just a smoke. That’s how you create sticky, long-term demand.

Regulation Is the Other Half of the Problem

Michigan’s open license system fueled oversupply on the production side, but when it comes to lounges, events, or other innovative concepts, approvals crawl. That imbalance strangles creativity while operators fight over a shrinking slice of the same pie.

Markets love to say they’re “open for business,” but ask any operator and you’ll hear the opposite. Taxes are heavy, compliance is costly, and the boldest ideas are the hardest to get approved. The end result is a market that punishes innovation and rewards scale — exactly the opposite of what a healthy ecosystem needs.

Stop Building Markets to Fail

Michigan doesn’t have to repeat the same collapse we’ve already seen elsewhere. But to avoid it, we have to stop pretending the system is broken by accident. It isn’t. It’s broken by design — because it’s built on oversupply, overregulation, and underdeveloped demand.

If Michigan wants to actually fix this, the roadmap is clear:

1. Stop pretending extracts are the answer — they stretch supply, they don’t grow demand.
2. Build consumer experiences through lounges, events, and wellness spaces.
3. Ease up on red tape so operators can innovate.
4. Incentivize sustainability and creativity, not just more volume.

Michigan’s cannabis market isn’t uniquely broken. It’s just the latest state to run the same flawed playbook. The real question is whether Michigan will keep repeating the cycle — or finally rewrite it.

Mike Khemmoro is the COO of MSO Mango Cannabis.

This article is from an external, unpaid contributor. It does not represent High Times’ reporting and has not been edited for content or accuracy. 

Photo by Luis Villasmil on Unsplash

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