ANN ARBOR, MI – A new Ann Arbor chocolate business offering customers a free gift of marijuana sold out in three days.
Smoke’s Chocolate launched Dec. 6, the day recreational marijuana officially became legal in Michigan. Its tagline: “Buy some chocolate, get some weed.”
The online chocolate shop run by Marc Bernard, 30, out of his Ann Arbor apartment did more than $1,700 in business in three days, after garnering attention on reddit. Customers ranged in age and profession, Bernard said.
Smoke’s Chocolate is now on hiatus until it can hire more employees — and college finals are over. Bernard is a Washtenaw Community College student studying political science and communications.
“It’s been absolutely insane,” he said. “We went viral, and we have not been able to keep up with demand.”
Customers pay $10 to $15 for the chocolate. A delivery driver – who is a medical marijuana patient – then offers those who are 21 and older a gift of marijuana.
The amount and type of marijuana offered is up to the driver’s discretion, Bernard said.
“We don’t own any cannabis. All that belongs to the delivery driver,” he said. “But we definitely encourage (a gift of marijuana). We don’t have a problem with the practice at all.”
With approval from voters in the November election, It is now legal for people 21 and older to possess marijuana in public and consume it in the privacy of their homes.
But retail sales of recreational marijuana won’t start for at least a year, until the state comes up with a licensing process for businesses. Licensed medical marijuana businesses are only allowed to sell their medical products to card-carrying patients.
In the meantime, gifting marijuana is legal — in some circumstances.
The Michigan Regulation and Taxation of Marihuana Act allows individuals to gift up to 2.5 ounces of the smokeable marijuana flower and up to 15 grams of marijuana concentrates, according to Matt Schweich, deputy director of the Marijuana Policy Project in Washington, D.C.
Legally speaking, gifts are “something provided without remuneration or the expectation of reciprocity or payment,” cannabis lawyer Matt Abel previously told MLive.
Questions remain over whether medical patients can gift marijuana to non-patients or if caregivers can gift marijuana to people who aren’t their patients, Abel said, and the answers could either be decided through an advisory from the state attorney general or through future court cases.
The Attorney General’s office is not providing a legal interpretation of the law to the media.
“If anything (with the law) should change, we would change accordingly,” Bernard said. “We’re entirely interested in staying on the right side of the law.”
Bernard spent three years working in the cannabis industry in Oregon, where recreational marijuana was legalized in 2015. The idea of gifting customers free marijuana is popular in Washington, D.C., he said.
Smoke’s Chocolate currently has one delivery driver. Bernard plans to hire more, and he wants them to be medical marijuana cardholders, who can legally purchase marijuana from their caregivers and dispensaries.
The delivery driver checks customers’ IDs before offering them the free gift of marijuana, Bernard said, and he plans to keep an attorney on retainer to help Smoke’s Chocolate keep up with Michigan’s evolving recreational marijuana laws.
“We’re excited to see the market develop, and we’re definitely interested in staying on the right side of the law,” he said. “We don’t want to push the bounds. We don’t want to create a disruption for what’s already happening as far as regulation.”
Credit: mlive.com