Our Story

From Guerilla Growers
to Your Glass Jar

A 4-mile journey from the indoor grow in Porter Township to the drive-thru window in Lawton. Two decades of Michigan dirt under our nails.

The Origin

Before there was a storefront, there was a room.

A small one. Cinderblock walls, a couple of T5s, hand-mixed nutrients, a calendar on the wall covered in pencil marks. We were guerilla growers — that's what we called ourselves and that's what we were. Long before Michigan called it legal, before there were licenses or compliance officers or seed-to-sale software, we were learning the plant the only way you really learn it. By killing some. By saving more. By paying attention.

The plant teaches you patience or it teaches you nothing. We took the first lesson seriously. We watched leaves curl in the heat and figured out why. We learned which strains hated wet feet and which ones wanted to be drowned. We trimmed at 2 a.m. with scissors that needed sharpening because nobody had told us yet about isopropyl alcohol and bud-trim shears.

"We're not out-of-state millionaires looking for an easy buck. We're Michiganders, growing magic for our neighbors."

When Michigan's caregiver program opened, we got our certifications. Five patients each, kept it tight, kept it personal. Patients became friends. Friends became regulars. We learned what relief looked like — not the marketing kind, the real kind. The grandmother whose hands stopped shaking after the right tincture. The vet who could finally sleep. The cancer patient whose appetite came back.

Recreational legalization changed the game but not the mission. We applied for a retail license. We picked the location — 73460 M-40, with a drive-thru lane that nobody else in Van Buren County had figured out yet. We built the grow facility four miles up the road in Porter Township. Indoor, hydroponic, climate-controlled. The same plants, the same care, just at a scale where we could serve a town instead of a circle of friends.

We are still the same people. The Archmage still trims at midnight when he can't sleep. The plant still teaches us things, and we pass those things along — at the register, in the drive-thru, on the blog. Cannabis is a craft and craft requires hands that know what they're doing. Ours do.

Where the grow stands today. We made a hard call: our Porter Township cultivation is paused while we rebuild it properly, and we're pushing to bring the rooms back online by early fall. It's not where we wanted to be, but doing it right beats doing it fast. In the meantime, the house flower we grew is still on the shelf — and it'll be here until this run is gone, somewhere around six months. When you spot Ragged Wizard flower, that's the last of a batch we're genuinely proud of.

"Quality should be accessible at every price point. The $30 eighth and the $48 eighth are grown by the same people in the same room."

That's the operating manual. If you've made it this far, thanks for reading. Now come see us.

The Long Road

From Then to Now

~ 2008

The Guerilla Days

Cultivating in secret. Cinderblock rooms, T5 lights, hand-mixed nutrients. Learning the plant from the ground up. No shortcuts because there weren't any to take.

2009 → 2018

The Caregiver Era

Michigan opens the medical program. We get certified. Five patients each. Personal care, personal accountability. Learning what real medical relief looks like — and who needs it.

2018

Recreational Goes Live

Michigan votes yes. We start the licensing process. Long nights, bigger paperwork. The mission stays the same: hands-on, terpene-first, no shortcuts.

2022

The Public Opening

73460 M-40, Lawton, MI. Doors open. The first customer through is one of our original caregiver patients. We name a strain after him.

2023

The Drive-Thru Expansion

The drive-thru lane goes live. We're now the fastest cannabis pickup in Van Buren County. Order ahead, roll up, roll out.

Today

254+ Five-Star Reviews

4.9 stars on Google. A regular drive-thru line. A grow that's now running multiple rooms in rotation. And we're still the same people who started in a basement.

The Future

Always Growing

New strains in development. A bigger room coming online next year. Maybe a second location someday. Always Michigan. Always hands-on. Always magic.

What We Stand For

Four Things, No Compromises

Pesticide Free

Never. Not once. Not ever. Beneficial insects, IPM protocols, clean rooms.

Hydroponic

Water, nutrients, light, love. No soil, no shortcuts. Precision-fed every cycle.

Terpene-First

THC% is a number. Terpenes are the experience. We test, document, label every batch.

Accessible Quality

Premium product at every price point. Same room, same hands, same standards.

The Room

Our Growing Experience

Indoor. Hydroponic. Four miles from the storefront. A small team that knew every plant by row — and the craft behind every jar of house flower on our shelves right now.

Currently paused · reopening early fall. These rooms are quiet for the moment while we rebuild the operation the right way. Everything below is how we grew the flower you can still buy today — and exactly how we'll grow it again when the lights come back on.

Meet the Wizard

The Man Behind the Magic

One owner, one principle: treat every customer like a neighbor — because in Lawton, they usually are.

JJ
John Jones
Founder & Owner

John started Ragged Wizard the same way he does most things — by rolling up his sleeves and refusing to cut corners. A lifelong Michigander, he learned cannabis from the ground up: years spent reading the plant by feel, season, and smell long before there was a storefront with his name on the lease.

You'll often find him behind the counter or at the drive-thru window, talking strains, swapping stories, and making sure the magic on the shelf is the kind he'd take home himself. No out-of-state investors. No corporate playbook. Just a local owner who built something real and still shows up to run it.

"We're not out-of-state millionaires. We're Michiganders, growing magic for our neighbors — and I wouldn't have it any other way."
See For Yourself

The Shop, In Pictures

Warm wood, glass cases, and those green-lit windows you can spot from a half mile down M-40. No clinical white walls, no bulletproof glass between you and the budtender — just a shop built by people who wanted somewhere they'd actually like to hang out.

Come See It in Person →
Where We Stand

We're Michiganders. Period.

"Lawton is home. Porter Township is home. Van Buren County is home. We grow here, we trim here, we sell here, we live here."

We partner with local food banks every quarter. We sponsor the Lawton Fall Festival. Our packaging is sourced from a Michigan printer. We hire locally — every team member lives within a 25-mile radius. This isn't a chain. This isn't a franchise. This is your neighbor.

Word Gets Around

Press & Recognition

We don't chase headlines — we grow flower. But sometimes the headlines find us anyway.

Google Reviews
"4.9 stars across 254+ reviews — among the highest-rated dispensaries in Southwest Michigan."
254+ verified customer reviews
Van Buren County
"The county's first true drive-thru dispensary — order ahead, roll up, roll out."
Drive-thru open since 2025
Lawton Fall Festival
"Returning community sponsor — supporting the festival, local food banks, and Lawton youth programs."
Community sponsor, 2 years running
Worth the Drive

Serving All of Southwest Michigan

Lawton sits right off M-40 between Paw Paw and Marcellus — an easy detour from anywhere in Van Buren or Kalamazoo County. Punch us into your GPS and see.

Come See Us

Visit the Wizard

Drive-thru open all hours. In-store browsing always welcome.

73460 M-40Lawton, MI 49065
(269) 299-0471Call or text
Drive-ThruOpen all hours
4.9 ⭐254+ Google reviews
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