Retail

About one-third of cannabis consumers say that if the expected federal shift to Schedule III were to require prescription-based transactions at pharmacies instead of the well-established dispensary model, they would go back to relying on the illicit market.

In a recent report prefacing the state’s upcoming adult-use cannabis market, Minnesota officials said they will need to license at least 381 cannabis dispensaries to satisfy the state’s legalization law.

Canadian cannabis operators destroyed a record amount of legal cannabis in 2022 and 2023. Since the market’s 2018 launch, licensees have now destroyed about 3.7 million pounds of product, largely due to the products being too old or low-quality.

Starting this year, the Oklahoma Medical Marijuana Authority will be utilizing “secret shoppers” in its effort to regulate the industry. Under the new law, regulators will anonymously purchase products and have them tested by a lab.

The adult-use cannabis industry in New York generated more than $150 million in revenue during its first year of licensed operations despite a lawsuit that sparked a months-long injunction against licensees opening their businesses.

Rhode Island cannabis dispensaries earned more than $100 million in combined medical and adult-use sales during the state’s first year of adult-use operations.

The embattled multi-state cannabis operator MedMen announced this week it is selling off its Arizona- and Nevada-based assets as part of its strategic restructuring toward an “asset-light growth strategy” in the company’s core markets.

A recent report found that because medical cannabis prices in Virginia are so high, about 90% of registered patients are purchasing products from outside the state’s medical cannabis market.

Data from the cannabis tech company Weedmaps found that retail cannabis sales on the day before Thanksgiving — dubbed “Green Wednesday” by the industry — surpassed average cannabis sales on Black Friday.

Budtenders at the Strawberry Fields dispensary in Columbus, Ohio voted to join Teamsters Local 413, becoming the first dispensary workers in the state to join the union.

Missouri cannabis retailers sold $113.1 million worth of adult-use products in October, according to data from the state Department of Health and Senior Services.

The medical cannabis market in Ohio is expected to hit $520 million this year, according to cannabis industry intelligence firm BDSA, which also predicts the state’s combined cannabis markets will total $820 million in 2025.

The number of registered medical cannabis patients in New Mexico has dropped significantly from the May 2022 peak of more than 135,000 to about 85,000.

Starting next month, Connecticut will raise the purchase limit for adult-use cannabis products from seven grams to 14 grams per transaction.

Workers at the Home State Dispensary in Kansas City, Missouri voted this week to join the Teamsters Local 955, making them the first cannabis workers in the city to unionize.

The first legal — albeit experimental — cannabis dispensary in Europe received final approval last week from Swiss regulators; the dispensary was approved as part of a study on the retail of adult-use cannabis.

New York’s Office of Cannabis Management has stopped the administrative trial process for businesses accused of retailing cannabis without a license.

Denver, Colorado has collected more than a half-billion dollars in cannabis tax revenue and industry fees since the city’s first dispensaries opened, topping $501.5 million for the city in August.

Adult-use cannabis dispensaries in Rhode Island set a new monthly sales record of $7.11 million in September, putting sales on track to meet the state’s annual cannabis revenue projections of $76 million for fiscal year 2023.

Connecticut’s combined medical and adult-use cannabis sales surpassed $25 million in September, setting a new monthly sales record for the state.

Officials in Cook County, Minnesota are considering opening a municipally owned cannabis dispensary that would “create a new revenue stream for county government.” The county already operates a municipal liquor store and the dispensary arrangement would be similar.