Cannabis Business Times
Higher Love Cannabis Co. is consolidating its retail operations to four stores in the Upper Peninsula after the state implemented a new 24% tax earlier this year.
Consumer demand for regulated cannabis products remains near an all-time high in Michigan, but low prices and high taxes mean more licensed businesses are closing or consolidating their operations.
The Higher Love Cannabis Co. announced Aug. 10 that it closed five of its nine dispensaries across the state’s Upper Peninsula (UP) in a decision company officials said was driven primarily by the mounting tax burden on Michigan’s adult-use cannabis industry.
The closures come after Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer signed an $81 billion budget bill that implemented a new 24% cannabis wholesale tax on Jan. 1, putting her road improvement funding plan on the shoulders of the regulated cannabis industry. This 24% wholesale tax is in addition to the state’s 10% cannabis excise tax and 6% sales tax at retail.
“While these taxes apply at different stages of the supply chain and do not constitute a single combined tax rate, their collective impact has created an increasingly unsustainable operating environment – particularly for compliant businesses serving smaller and rural communities,” according to a Higher Love press release.
The Marquette-based business announced that Aug. 9 was the final day to place and pick up orders at its Crystal Falls, Escanaba, Houghton, Munising and Ontonagon dispensary locations.
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