Lansing Lines is presented in cooperation with MIRS, a Lansing-based news and information service.
Cannabis Sales Set Record In July As Price Rebounds
Cannabis sales hit a record high in July, according to Cannabis Regulatory Agency (CRA) data, which also found prices for marijuana-related products on the rise after hitting an all-time low in January.
Total sales in July set a state record with nearly $271 million. Prices are still down year-over-year, but the CRA data showed the average per-ounce price of flower, known as bud, has increased steadily since the industry low of $80 in January to nearly $99 in July. The amount being sold and held in inventory also grew over six months.
“I don’t know that you can point to any one specific thing, to be honest, but I mean I think it’s a multitude of consumer attitudes, more municipalities coming online, the enforcement issues, and we’ve been doing this since 2017,” said PharmaCann Government Regulatory Affairs Officer Shelly Edgerton.
Edgerton, former president of the dissolved Michigan Cannabis Manufacturers Association, said the market seems to be maturing. She said manufacturers had become more efficient in their production methods and distributors had learned how much product they needed to maintain freshness on their shelves.
Overall, January saw 341,587 pounds and 374,644 fluid ounces of product sold, for a total of more than $196 million. There were also 1.31 million pounds of various cannabis products and 2.02 million fluid ounces of infused liquid at the end of January.
Compared to July, 434,292 pounds and 838,742 fluid ounces of product sold, for a total of more than $270.6 million in total sales. Inventory was also up in July, with more than 2.73 million ounces of infused liquid and nearly 1.63 million pounds of various cannabis products.
There was also an increase in reported product sold according to CRA data, and the amount of taxes collected from the state for the amount of sales. The House Fiscal Agency recently showed collection was up.
“I just hate to say this, but the Treasury is doing a better job of making sure the sales taxes get collected and transmitted,” she said.
She also pointed to the stepped-up enforcement of the illicit market, as promised by CRA Director Brian Hanna, as one of the many reasons for the market rebounding in Michigan.
“It’s kind of reverberated throughout the industry that, you know, ‘don’t push the envelope’ and ‘don’t cross into the illicit market.’ I think that’s been a huge help to the industry in terms of prices rebounding,” Edgerton said.
July saw 137 enforcement actions taken, which is a sharp rise over the 28 in January.
She also said it helped that more communities were starting to allow adult-use recreational cannabis products to be sold. Between January and July, two municipalities opted in.
She also pointed to litigation not being as commonplace against the losers of municipal ordinances that allowed cannabis shops.
Along with that, she pointed to better collaboration between all the state agencies in contributing to the industry.
She said when she first started in the industry, agencies like the Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy (EGLE) and the Michigan Occupational Safety and Health Administration didn’t want to touch the industry.
“It was like pulling teeth. You’d think I’d ask them to have a root canal or something to participate with us, and now they’re being much more aggressive,” she said.
Will Legislators Touch The ’19 Auto Insurance Reform Following Supreme Court Opinion?
An advocate for those catastrophically injured in car wrecks is concerned the Michigan Legislature will check out from making further reforms after the Michigan Supreme Court’s ruling that drivers injured before the 2019 auto insurance law was enacted are shielded from benefit cuts.
“I think there may be a few that are going to kind of drop off, or at least not have the overall interest to the same level that they had,” said President Tim Hoste of CPAN, formerly known as the Coalition Protecting Auto No-Fault. “This issue is a significant problem. This is a care crisis, and this is something that we are going to see continue to happen, unless we can actually put something in place that works.”
Hoste spoke on a recent MIRS Monday Podcast about the Michigan Supreme Court’s July 31 ruling in Ellen M. Andary, Philip Krueger & Eisenhower Center v. USAA Casualty Insurance Company and Citizens Insurance Company of America.
The 4-year-old reform aimed to create flexibility and historic price drops for Michigan drivers, specifically by removing the requirement for drivers to have unlimited personal injury protection (PIP) coverage.
Within the public act’s formula was a cap on reimbursable family care of 56 hours per week and a 45% reduction in reimbursements paid for by Michigan insurers for a non-Medicare patient’s long-term care.
In a 5-2 opinion, the Michigan Supreme Court affirmed a lower court’s holding that lawmakers did not clearly indicate that the statute would apply retroactively, meaning the aforementioned items should not affect those injured while covered before the law’s June 2019 passage.
As CPAN now looks at how to advocate for drivers catastrophically injured after the law’s passage, Hoste said he doesn’t believe legislators will go back to the drawing board entirely for auto insurance reform.
“I do want to kind of clear up one thing: we have been hearing for over a while now that CPAN and the medical and rehabilitation industry want to scrap the law and go back to the way that it was. That is 100% false,” Hoste said. “We’re just simply asking for a fair and sustainable fee schedule – not the current fee schedule that was crafted on assumptions and settled with oppressive rate cuts.”
MIRS has learned that advocates in the medical and rehabilitation industry are not looking to change the present-day state of PIP choice, but are instead interested in legislation that replaces the 45% reimbursement reduction with a fee schedule.
According to a June 2023 publication from Michigan Auto Law, the total number of car accidents in the state has jumped from 245,432 in 2020 to 293,341 in 2022.
“We really do need legislative action because we have a large number of people who reside within Michigan who were injured after June 11, 2019,” Hoste said. “Unfortunately, more people get injured each and every single day. That is the population now that still (constitutes) the massive care crisis that we have going on that has to be committed to be fixed.”
Hoste said CPAN is currently preparing a document that “really spotlights the main reason why auto insurance premiums are what they are, and the non-driving rating factors that are still very, very prevalent in the actual auto insurance system today.”
According to an August 2023 report from the Zebra, a car and home insurance comparison site, the average car insurance rate in Michigan is 73% higher than the American average at $2,639 annually.
In Detroit, as of Aug. 3, the yearly average premium is $4,726. In nearby Macomb County, the annual average premium is $3,252 in Warren and $2,853 in Sterling Heights. In Lansing, it is $2,078 and in Grand Rapids, West Michigan drivers are subjected to an average annual premium of $1,986.
A September 2022 report from the Brain Injury Association of Michigan (BIAMI) found that since the 45% reimbursement reduction and weekly 56-hour cap went into effect in July 2021, six catastrophic car accident survivors died, 78% reported a loss in services and 42 individuals were reportedly hospitalized due “to changes brought by reform.”
“When (Gov. Gretchen Whitmer) signed this bill, she and the leadership in the House and Senate made a comment along the lines of ‘this is a highway to reform auto insurance, but we still have to install guardrails and exit ramps to make it work.’ That was over four years ago, and there hasn’t been one legitimate legislative effort to fix this issue and put in those guardrails and exit ramps that were talked about,” Hoste said. “That’s what we’re asking (for): a laser-focused fix on the fee schedule, not scrapping it.”
State Recommends Eating Fewer Smelt Out Of PFAS Concerns
People shouldn’t have more than six servings of smelt a year out of Lake Huron or one serving a month out of Lake Michigan, Lake Superior and Portage Lake in Houghton County due to PFAS concerns, according to revised state guidelines from the Department of Health and Human Services.
Higher levels of a group of chemicals known as PFAS is also limiting recommended smelt dinners to two a month for fish out of Gull Lake in Kalamazoo County, or four servings per month from Higgins Lake in Roscommon County.
“There are many health benefits to eating fish and the Eat Safe Fish Guides help individuals choose the fish that are best for them and their families,” MDHHS Chief Medical Executive Dr. Natasha Bagdasarian said.
The perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances in the fish are present in the filet like mercury, not in the fat.
There are still “Do Not Eat” advisories in areas of Michigan that have extremely high levels of PFAS found in the fish. The state maintains an online database with those areas.
The 2023 Eat Safe Fish guide was released this month by MDHHS.
The Eat Safe Fish guidelines are neither law nor regulations, but a resource offered about what fish are healthy and in what amounts from different areas in the state are OK.
Paquette Concerned With Michigan Hospital Use Of Gender Affirming Care
Rep. Brad Paquette (R-Niles) sent a letter to Michigan hospitals expressing his concern with their continued use of “gender-affirming care” for minors, after an April 2023 overseas article did not conclude the benefits of youth gender transitions outweighed the harm.
The article, based on reviews of evidence conducted by public health authorities in Finland, Sweden and England, concluded that the risk/benefit ratio of youth gender transition ranged from unknown to unfavorable, in part because of a scarcity of follow-up data.
The result in those countries has been a shift from gender affirmative care in cases dealing with minors, which Paquette urged Michigan hospitals to adopt, as well.
In his letter, Paquette expressed his concern that hospitals in Michigan continue to administer gender-affirming care drugs to minors.
“I am writing to express my apprehension regarding the provision of gender-affirming care to minors,” Paquette wrote. “I strongly believe that open dialogue and evidence-based decision-making are essential for our democracy. Thus, I am eager to hear your perspective on the scientific data coming from overseas.”
He also requested that hospital administrators provide feedback about the study and its impact on patient care moving forward.
Michigan Less Healthy Than National Average
The Citizens Research Council (CRC) of Michigan and the Ann Arbor-based Altarum Inc. highlighted the second phase of its state population research this month, reporting that Michigan’s population “is less healthy than the national average.”
CRC and Altarum made headlines in May with a research series estimating that from 2045 through 2050, 45,000 more deaths will take place in Michigan than births. At the beginning of June, the Governor launched the creation of the “Growing Michigan Together Council,” which is scheduled to adopt recommendations for improving the state’s population growth on Dec. 1 of this year.
However, the CRC and Altarum recently hosted a virtual presentation on a report showcasing that Michiganders experienced cancer prevalence at a rate of 7.6%. Meanwhile, the collective rate for neighboring Midwest states was 6.7% and the United States carried a rate of 6.8%.
When it came to cardiovascular disease, the prevalence rate was 10% for Michiganders, 8.1% for Americans as a whole and 8.5% for other Midwestern residents. In Michigan, 35.2% of the population is obese. For Americans, in general, that percentage is 31.9%. Among Midwesterners, 33.5% are obese.
“When we look at population growth, we see there’s a bi-directional cause and effect between the lack of growth in our economy, our workforce, the condition of our infrastructure, how we’re treating the environment around us…and certainly, the health of our population,” said CRC President Eric Lupher during a recent presentation.
In 2019, the premature death rate for Black Michiganders before the age of 75 was 14,121 per 100,000 individuals. The same rate was 9,100 per 100,000 for Native American residents, 6,358 per 100,000 Hispanic residents and 7,842 per 100,000 white Michiganders.
“The report notes that Michigan’s future depends on communities of color, which will represent 40% of the working-age population by 2050,” reads a press release that distributed several research documents ahead of today’s event. “Yet, Black and brown residents are in poorer health than their white neighbors. Removing the stark socioeconomic and racial disparities in health care based on where one lives in Michigan is imperative.”