One of Lansing’s Best Pot Shops Isn’t Even in Lansing
A medical cannabis retailer in Ionia is making key inroads on the Greater Lansing marijuana market with a massive array of flower, concentrates, vaporizer cartridges and more. And with free delivery, most Lansing residents needn’t even leave the couch to replenish their stash.
Arcanna opened its doors as a dispensary for card-carrying medical cannabis patients in June.
The company currently operates only one retail location in Ionia but has plans to expand into the Lansing and Grand Rapids markets over the next several months. For now, local residents will either need to drive an hour west or place their orders for delivery, which is free for purchases over $50 — and not exactly difficult with such an extensive selection of medicinal products.
On Monday, the online menu featured a stunning 55 varieties of flower, 35 different types of dabbable concentrates, dozens of different flavors of vaporizer cartridges and much more. I picked up an eighth of flower and two of the many types of Stiiizy vaporizer cartridges in stock.
Michigan strains, exotic imports from California and Oregon and others lined the shelves.
Arcanna Co-founder Dean St. Peter is a former caregiver. Despite the wide product selection, he said the business revolves around quality over quantity — and really (really) potent medicine.
Deliveries to Grand Rapids and Lansing account for 25% of Arcanna’s sales, St. Peter said. The company is also focused on a vertical integration model, meaning the company will eventually harvest and sell its own crops, as well as process that harvest into concentrates and edibles.
For now, Arcanna is relying on a wide network of outside distributors to keep its inventory full.
“Our mindset is quality first. That’s where a lot of other people fuck up,” St. Peter added. “From a competitive pricing standpoint, we also need to keep our ear to the streets as well.”
Arcanna operates 22,000 square feet of cultivation space, which can be viewed through a window attached to about 3,800 square feet of retail storefront on Beardsley Road in Ionia. State licenses allow the facility to produce up to 1,000 plants at any given time during the year.
Once its build-out is complete later this year, St. Peter said that capacity will climb to 12,500 plants and include a staff of up to 100 employees. The goal: Better weed than anyone else.
“We’ve got a long standing relationship with cannabis and that experience really helps,” added co-founder Nick Nover, who had operated a string of hydroponic supply stores before Arcanna. “We truly do feel that allows us to create products that are the absolute best in their class.”
Healing Organic Garden — Bully Kush
Price — $50/3.5g
THC content — 20.5%
This indica-dominant hybrid bud from Healing Organic Garden is a product of the California-based brand SeedJunky Genetics — described by Arcanna as a “backcross” of the Triangle Mints strain. The dense buds were coated in trichomes with dark purple leaves and bright orange hairs. A funky, earthy and cheesy sort of smell permeated from the packaging.
And it was potent. The soothing effects of this Bully Kush crept on me over the course of an hour, eventually lifting me into a momentary state of bliss before I remembered that local authorities were expecting an armed insurrection at the Michigan State Capitol the next day.
Arcanna Cannabis Provisioning Center
29 Beardsley Road, Ionia
(616) 755-6656, ArcannaUSA.com
Kyle Kaminski is a City Pulse staff writer and cannabis enthusiast who has been smoking marijuana just about every day for the last decade. Every week, Kaminski samples some of the best cannabis products available in Greater Lansing, gets real high and writes about them.