ONAWAY, MICHIGAN -- The first marijuana seeds were planted for his personal use in 2009. Back then, Ben Kolasa didn’t know what he was doing.
A little more than a decade later, through countless trials and errors, the 33-year-old is opening Sticky Bush Farms, his own recreational marijuana business in Presque Isle County’s Onaway, about 45 minutes from Mackinaw City. He said it’s an entirely new world.
Kosala didn’t initially expect his hobby to evolve into a career.
The Marijuana Regulatory Agency, the body that oversees the state’s medical and recreational marijuana markets, issued Kolasa the first ever recreational marijuana “microbusiness” license last week, and he hopes to open the doors to his tiny 500-square-foot storefront in an Onaway an industrial park this November.
Ben Kolasa, owner of Sticky Bush Farms in Onaway.
“When I started growing, it was just for me, so I could provide myself with medicine," Kosala said. “Then, I guess it started being decent medicine. People wanted help or just wanted to try it. And then I started helping some other people, epilepsy patients, some cancer patients, an MS (multiple sclerosis) patient.
“It kept blossoming into more. I just kept going as the road opened up.”
Not long after Kosala first started growing, his medical marijuana patient list maxed out at six patients, including himself, and his grow capped at 72 plants.
Michigan voters open the doors to further opportunity in November 2018, legalizing marijuana and creating a commercial recreational cannabis market. Kosala began thinking about how he, with his knowledge, skills and love of cannabis, might fit into the new industry.
“I really like what I do and it got to the point that either I did this or I was a caregiver forever,” he said. “The caregiver system is probably going to be there for a while, but I just have this feeling that it might start fading away.”
It already has. State regulators initially allowed caregivers to sell excess medical marijuana products to licensed businesses, but plan to totally eliminate caregiver product from the licensed markets by October.
The recreational marijuana industry has expanded quickly with growers, retail stores, processors, transporters and labs since the market first opened on Dec. 1, 2019, but one approved business type that has been conspicuously absent is the microbusiness.
The license is unique in that it’s a mixture of various license functions.
A microbusiness license allows a growing to cultivate up to 150 plants, process the harvest for sale as flower, oils, edibles and other products, and sell them from their own storefront. The distinction is that a microbusiness can’t intermingle with other aspects of the recreational market.
Kosala won’t be allowed to distribute his products to other businesses or purchase their marijuana to manufacture his own products. A microbusiness is an entirely self-contained model.
“We want to get bigger,” he said. “We’re going to add on an extract lab, stuff for edibles. We can do everything in house."
He’ll focus on the sale of consistent, quality, “top-shelf craft cannabis.”
Asked if being the first ever microbusiness in Michigan matters to him, Kosala said: “Nah, man. It’s rad as hell, but it wasn’t really something I was focused on. I was just trying to get my business up and moving."
It’s a tedious process that began nearly a year ago when he approached the Onaway City Council for approval to open a marijuana microbusiness in the 800-resident town where Kosala’s father owns a popular diner. A new ordinance allowing the business passed in October 2019. Since then, he’s been working with the state on site plans and a long list of other requirements.
It’s not cheap. The application and licensing fees alone were $19,000. He’s invested a couple hundred thousand dollars more.
While Kosala has no doubt he has the ability to operate a successful commercial business, he’s passionate about continuing to help medical marijuana users who gave him his start.
Tanya Salata, a medical marijuana patient of Ben Kolasa
“I’m extremely proud of Ben. He’s a great person with a big heart," said Tanya Salata, who suffers from epilepsy and became one of Kosala’s patients over a year ago. “I describe Ben as a guardian angel ... He was just real personal. He came to my house and we sat and went through all my medicine and when I started using marijuana correctly, my seizures started to go away."
Salata said Kosala tinkered with a low-THC, high-CBD cannabis oil that isn’t intended to get the user high. Salata plops a couple drops of the oil under her tongue daily and said she soon started seeing results. The marijuana extract seemed to help Salata more than any medication doctors have prescribed her since the seizures began in 2012.
At their worst, Salata said she was enduring seizures nearly every couple minutes, usually during sleep.
“And now, at this time, for the first time ever, I’m nine months without a seizure,” she said. "My doctor “said don’t quit what you’re doing, because it’s working.
“Now I’m able to drive again. It’s probably the best thing that’s happened to me.”
Salata said Kolasa has his growing skills “down to a science.”
“If it works for me, I would hope he would put that product in his shop to sell for others to use,” she said. “I’m happy he’s got a business and I will support him 100% -- always.”
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September 24, 2020 at 06:00PM
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Hobby to craft: First marijuana ‘microbusiness’ license awarded to Northern Michigan man - mlive.com
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