Planting the Seeds 

Nancy Edmonds Hanson

Sometime next summer, licensed Minnesota businesses will launch a brand new kind of retail. The sale of recreational marijuana will begin.
Not only that: The law passed by the 2023 Minnesota Legislature will shake up another fledgling business just getting on its feet: beverages and candies containing small, closely monitored amounts of THC and CBD derived from the hemp plant, a close cousin of Cannabis sativa and Cannabis indica. The main difference: Hemp contains less than 0.3 percent of the psychoactive substance THC, while the other species are more potent.
Registered pharmacist Steve Rosenfeldt, who established Moorhead’s Ediblez OTC in 2022 when the THC products were introduced, plans to apply for licensure to sell newly legalized cannabis products when the state’s rules are established. But that won’t happen until some time in 2025.
In the meantime, legalization has already affected his shop at 2223 Highway 10, as well as Unwind at 3505 Eighth St. S. and two other Moorhead shops now stocking THC and CBD products. Edible products may contain no more than 5 milliliters of the active ingredient – among them, infused seltzers and other canned beverages, gummies, chocolates, mixers, crunch bars, bath bombs, salves, coffee and even dog chews. Their sales have already begun to dip.
Why? Since Aug. 1, 2023, Minnesota residents over 21 have been permitted to grow up to eight marijuana plants for their personal use. The Legislature also has broadened the law to permit those with medical marijuana cards to grow up to 16. And so, to balance out diminishing sales, Rosenfeldt is teaching those eager to cultivate cannabis to grow their own.
“My customers can have up to four mature flowering plants, and another four in the vegetative stage,” he says. “Now that cannabis seeds are legal, I’m informing people about how to plant, care for and harvest their totally legal plants.”
He has turned half of his Ediblez shop, next door to the Midtown Tavern, into a garden center of sorts. The law doesn’t permit him to sell germinated living plants. Instead, he provides a selection of 40 strains of cannabis seeds, sold in packets of three.
Most of those growing cannabis – strictly for their personal use – choose hybrids of the two most popular varieties, Can-nabis sativa and Cannabis indica, both native to Asia. Each has its own pluses. One is size. Grown outdoors, sativa varieties develop into towering 12- to 15-foot plants with huge root structures. Indica strains are shorter and stockier.
They vary in their effects as well: “Sativa is more stimulating and energetic. Indica is relaxing and calming,” Rosenfeldt says. Some call sativa’s effect a “cerebral high,” uplifting and energet-ic; in contrast, indica produces a relaxing, calming “body high,” effective for pain relief.
Ediblez’ stock includes everything first-time growers need to nurture their rather finicky mini-crops of cannabis. The seeds are generally planted in buckets or sacks of special grow-ing media, either soil mixtures or coco cori (fibers from the outer shell of coconuts), although hydroponic growing is also an option.
Special fertilizers nourish the plants. Grow lights simulate sunshine for the greenery grown in basements. Grow tents – zipped enclosures that resemble portable fish houses – come equipped with both lights and an air exchange system to keep the plants’ distinctive odor under control.
Timing has so far dictated that most have been growing their greenery indoors. The law also permits outdoor growing on private property … but the area must be locked and shielded from public view.
Rosenfeldt’s monthly seminars are on hiatus for the summer, but, come fall, he plans to resume them on the final Saturday of the month. “I had no idea what to expect at the first one in September. I thought maybe a handful would show up,” he says. “Instead, there were over 30. We’ve been getting 30 to 45 at every session,” with the Cannabis Club, a core group of 10 or so, meeting regularly to discuss their particular sort of gardening.
Who comes to learn to cultivate? “Most of my customers are over 50.
Some are expert gardeners. Others aren’t,” he reports. “The majority are looking for therapeutic applications instead of getting high. Quite a few have someone in memory care.”
That’s definitely not to say younger adults aren’t interested, though they’ve been scarce among his students: “For the most part, I think the younger generations just find out how to do it on the internet.”
Rosenfeldt estimates the cost of cultivating cannabis plants ranges from $300 for a small, simple set-up to $1,000 for a grow tent with all the trimmings. Sales, he suggests, have been brisk.
Legalization is sure to affect the new shops selling hemp-derived THC and CBD products that have sprung up all over the state, as well as medical dispensaries that will now be rolled into overall cannabis retail regulation. As state rules shake out over the year ahead, the pharmacist expects most sellers to seek licenses to sell recreational marijuana. How those licenses will be awarded remains up in the air. At press time, it appeared some kind of lottery will be established. Even though several of the Moorhead shops have been leaders in the new industry, they are not guaranteed to win licensure.
The state has estimated needing a retailer for every 12,500 of population; looking to the market just a river’s width away in North Dakota, Rosenfeldt expects to see a dozen here someday.
Cannabis sales were banned by the U.S. government in 1937. After 87 years of clandestine sales in the shadows, the outcome of Minnesota’s legalization is virtually guaranteed to be substantial, especially here on the border.

“This is one of the few instances in any industry where Minnesota has an advantage over North Dakota,” Rosenfeldt points out. “It’s going to be massive.”