Mother's Day gets lit with pot gift baskets

Some moms are getting a different kind of flower this Mother's Day.

Several licensed marijuana provisioning centers in Metro Detroit are looking to redefine tender loving care by offering gift baskets packed with fruit-flavored marijuana flower, chocolate edibles and CBD-infused bath bombs, moisturizers and scrubs. 

Although only medical marijuana cardholders can purchase the baskets, recreational legalization opens the way for patients to gift them to their loved ones.

"It's a chance to introduce your mother to cannabis," said Jerry Millen, owner of the Greenhouse of Walled Lake. "She might like the face scrub so much, she might even go get her card."

Jimmie Caudill, 25, of Flat Rock walked into The Reef, a Detroit dispensary, last week looking for something special to give his mother, who also has a medical marijuana card. The Reef brought together a mix of marionberry-flavored flower as well as bath bombs, a topical tincture and a face moisturizer infused with CBD, or cannabidiol.

Cannabidiol is a compound found in the cannabis plant that many claim has healing properties but contains little tetrahydrocannabinol, the psychoactive compound known as THC in marijuana that creates a high.

"I want her to be pampered," Caudill said. "My mom never really got into this before I introduced it to her. She likes using it more than store brands because they're using more essential oils, more natural products. I feel like she's going to be speechless. I feel like her eyes are going to light up."

The Reef has sold at least 37 of the baskets that patients can customize with Pot of Gold CBD bath bombs, Coffee Exfoliating CBD scrubs, THC lip balm and more. They cost $100-$500.

"We didn't think this would be such a hit," said Rush Hasan, head of The Reef's operations and business development. "It definitely shows people being accepting of this industry. A lot of this is CBD items. People are starting to open up to the idea of CBD and how beneficial it could potentially be without using cannabis" with high THC content.

Millen's Greenhouse on Friday began selling 20 baskets for $150 each. They come with CBD bath salts and bath bombs. The basket also includes cannabis-infused peanut butter cups and fortune cookies, a Super Skunk pre-roll joint, a vape cartridge and a Greenhouse T-shirt. The dispensary also is handing out roses on Saturday and Sunday.

"Mothers deserve a break," Millen said. "Cannabis recreationally or medically can give you relief. If Mom wants to unwind, what better way is there to?"

Wayne Provision is offering $20, $40 and $60 baskets with pre-rolled joints and an assortment of gummy and sucker edibles for Mother's Day on Friday and Saturday, budtender Courtney Markey said.

Michigan's nascent cannabis industry still has a ways to go, though. Specially branded products for holidays and other events from licensed growers and processors have yet to become available, Millen and Hasan said. But such dispensary-driven activity suggests there is a demand for it as marijuana becomes more mainstream.

"Maybe in one to two years when the market stabilizes and has more of an equilibrium, you'll see more of that coming," Hasan said. "The branding is what really will help to make the major players stay in the game longer. It makes it special."

So dads should not feel left out either. The provisioning centers are planning to have special offers for Father's Day next month and other holidays in the future, too.

bnoble@detroitnews.com