Insights
Canada Is Now the World’s Largest Cannabis Market
OTTAWA – Supported by 3,420 licensed stores and roughly 7.1 million past-year consumers, Canada's legal industry generated C$5.42 billion (approx. US$3.98 billion) in retail sales in 2025, making it the world's largest federally-legal Cannabis market by a substantial margin. That distinction matters. Unlike the United States, where Cannabis remains a Schedule I federal substance and ...
Massachusetts Opens New Round of Social Equity Applications for Cannabis
BOSTON – The Massachusetts Cannabis Control Commission will begin accepting new applications for its Social Equity Program on September 1, with the intake period running through November 30. The commission will also hold four virtual application clinics, beginning August 26, to help prospective participants understand the program and application process. The Social Equity Program (SEP) ...
Fewer Americans Drink Alcohol as Cannabis Shows Up to the Party
LOS ANGELES – For generations, alcohol held an unquestioned place at the center of adult social life. A drink after work. Beer at the game. Wine with dinner. That relationship is now under measurable pressure: from shifting health views, economic friction, and a plant-derived alternative that until recently carried too much stigma to register at ...
Analysis: The DEA Is Now Fighting to Move Cannabis to Schedule III
WASHINGTON, D.C.,- For more than 50 years, the Drug Enforcement Administration has helped enforce federal Cannabis prohibition. This week, the DEA formally argued that Cannabis no longer belongs in Schedule I. In its final written argument following 11 days of hearings, the agency defended moving Cannabis from Schedule I to Schedule III and rejected the ...
Analysis: Wall Street Quietly Tests the Water In Cannabis
NEW YORK- For years, institutional investors have largely remained outside the publicly traded Cannabis market. Federal illegality, regulatory uncertainty, limited access to major exchanges and disappointing stock performance have kept most major investment firms on the sidelines. Howard Lutnick with President Trump The latest 13F filings suggest that could be starting to change. Every ...
Earnings Season: Cannabis Operators Deliver a Different Kind of Q2 2026
LOS ANGELES – The Cannabis industry wraps up its second-quarter earnings, and the aggregate picture carries a theme that would have been harder to locate a few years ago. Operators are making money. Profitability, not revenue scale, is the number that commands attention now. Cannamonitor Decide has compiled every result released through mid-August, spanning operators ...
Curaleaf Launches $272 Million Hostile Takeover Battle for Aurora Cannabis
NEW YORK - Curaleaf Holdings has launched a hostile takeover battle for Aurora Cannabis, publicly announcing plans to take a US$272 million offer directly to Aurora’s shareholders after failing to secure the support of Aurora’s board. If completed, the deal would bring together two of the most recognizable companies in Cannabis and create a global ...
Ohio Cannabis Health & Business Summit Announces 2026 Event in Columbus
The sixth annual OCHBS will take place September 23–24 at the Greater Columbus Convention Center, with expanded programming and expo booths, a medical patient access program, and signature networking events at Stories on High and COSI. COLUMBUS, Ohio — The Ohio Cannabis Health & Business Summit (OCHBS), Ohio’s largest cannabis conference & expo, will return ...
OCHBS: From Music to Cannabis: Building Ohio’s Largest Cannabis Conference: Profile: Lenny Berry
Lenny Berry is the Founder and CEO of the Ohio Cannabis Health & Business Summit (OCHBS), one of the Midwest's leading Cannabis conferences. A longtime entrepreneur and former music industry executive, he founded OCHBS in 2019 to bring together patients, healthcare professionals, entrepreneurs, investors, policymakers, and industry leaders to advance Cannabis education, business, and innovation. ...
From Music to Cannabis: Building Ohio’s Largest Cannabis Conference: Profile: Lenny Berry
Lenny Berry is the Founder and CEO of the Ohio Cannabis Health & Business Summit (OCHBS), one of the Midwest's leading Cannabis conferences. A longtime entrepreneur and former music industry executive, he founded OCHBS in 2019 to bring together patients, healthcare professionals, entrepreneurs, investors, policymakers, and industry leaders to advance Cannabis education, business, and innovation. ...
IRS Pushes Back on Cannabis Tax Refund Claims as the 280E Battle Enters a New Era
WASHINGTON, D.C.-The Cannabis industry's long-running battle with Section 280E has entered a pivotal new phase. For years, one of the greatest financial challenges facing state-licensed Cannabis businesses has not been competition or regulation—it has been the federal tax code. Section 280E has prevented Cannabis operators from deducting ordinary business expenses because Cannabis remained classified as ...
Senate Democrats Reintroduce Comprehensive Cannabis Descheduling Bill, Renewing Push for Federal Reform
WASHINGTON, D.C. - The push for comprehensive federal Cannabis reform has returned to the U.S. Senate with the reintroduction of the Cannabis Administration and Opportunity Act (CAOA), a sweeping piece of legislation that would remove Cannabis from the federal Controlled Substances Act and establish a national framework for regulating the industry. Introduced by Cory Booker, ...
California’s Cannabis Promise Remains Unfulfilled: Why Racial Disparities in Cannabis Arrests Continue to Shame the Golden State
SACRAMENTO- Nearly a decade after California voters approved adult-use Cannabis, the state has become one of the world's largest legal Cannabis markets. Billions of dollars have flowed through licensed businesses, thousands of jobs have been created, and Cannabis has become increasingly accepted by mainstream society. Yet beneath these successes lies an uncomfortable reality. For many ...
FDA Finalizes Psychedelic Drug Guidance and Schedules September Public Hearing
WASHINGTON, D.C., The US FDA has established clearer expectations for psychedelic clinical trials while inviting public input on how the therapies could eventually be delivered in supervised healthcare settings. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has finalized its long-awaited guidance for companies and researchers developing psychedelic medicines, marking an important step toward bringing the emerging ...
Lazear Advises Medical Cannabis Company Organic Remedies on ESOP Transaction
COLUMBUS, Ohio, July 6, 2026 – Organic Remedies, one of Pennsylvania's leading medical cannabis companies, has completed its transition to 100% employee ownership through an Employee Stock Ownership Plan (ESOP), marking another milestone in the growing adoption of ESOPs as an ownership transition strategy for the cannabis industry. Lazear Capital Partners (Lazear) served as the ...
California’s Legal Cannabis Market Holds Steady at Midyear
LOS ANGELES – California's licensed retailers generated $323.1 million in Cannabis sales in June, pushing the state's first-half total to nearly $1.95 billion. The June figure landed almost exactly in line with the roughly $322 million sold in June 2025, marking one of the cleaner year-over-year comparisons California's licensed sector has produced in several years. ...
Glass House Brands Applies for NYSE Uplisting
LONG BEACH – Glass House Brands Inc., a vertically integrated Cannabis company concentrated in California, announced it has applied to list its subordinate voting shares on the New York Stock Exchange. The filing is among the most concrete steps any U.S. multistate Cannabis operator has taken toward a place on a major American exchange. Glass ...
Trulieve Approved to Uplist to NYSE in Historic Milestone for U.S. Cannabis Industry
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — June 5, 2026 — In a landmark moment for the U.S. Cannabis industry, Trulieve Cannabis Corp. announced today that it has received approval to list its subordinate voting shares on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), becoming one of the first major U.S. Cannabis operators to secure a listing on a premier ...
Abstrax Earns Spot on Fast Company’s Most Innovative Companies List
IRVINE – Abstrax, the botanical flavor science company that built its foundation on essential oils and Cannabis terpene research, has been named to Fast Company's 2026 list of the World's Most Innovative Companies, placing fifth in the Manufacturing category among 720 honorees across 59 sectors and regions. Founded in California in 2017, Abstrax began with ...
Oregon Completes First Full Year of Psilocybin Services Data Collection
SALEM – Oregon Psilocybin Services (OPS) has wrapped up its 2025 quarterly reporting, giving the public its clearest view yet of how the state's regulated program performed over a full calendar year. Psychedelic Alpha released its summary of the Q4 data, drawing from official state dashboards to highlight trends in client numbers, session formats, safety ...
GCNC-Whitney Economics Report Provides Updated Insights on EU & UK Cannabis Markets
LONDON – The Global Cannabis Network Collective (GCNC) and Whitney Economics released What You Need to Know: EU & UK Cannabis Market Update this week at the Cannabis Europa 2026 conference in London, presenting a detailed assessment of the forces currently reshaping Cannabis across the European Union and the United Kingdom. The report combines quantitative ...
Cannabis 3.0: Why the Next Phase of the Industry Will Be Built on Platforms, Not Products
NEW YORK- The Cannabis industry is entering a new phase of development. The first phase of the legal Cannabis market was defined by access. Cannabis 1.0 was about legalization, licensing, compliance, and the basic right of consumers and patients to purchase regulated products. The central question was whether legal Cannabis could exist at all. Operators, ...
What’s in a Jar? For Cannabis Concentrate Brands, Quite a Lot
LOS ANGELES – The packaging debate in Cannabis manufacturing rarely makes headlines. But the choice between glass and plastic for concentrate products is one that shapes what a brand becomes and what it can prove. The global Cannabis concentrate market, valued at roughly $1.6 billion in 2025, is projected to reach $9 billion by 2036 ...
UK Medical Cannabis H1 2025: The Market Still Running on Trust
LONDON – You won't find the echoes of this revolution in the National Health Service (NHS) waiting lists or General Practitioner (GP) surgeries. It lives instead in a constellation of private clinics spread across the country, in carefully labelled jars of flower, in the inboxes of tens of thousands of patients who, until recently, had ...
Virginia Cannabis Licenses Delayed Again After Spanberger Veto
RICHMOND-Virginia’s long-delayed adult-use Cannabis market has suffered another major setback after Governor Abigail Spanberger vetoed legislation that would have created a regulated retail sales framework for the Commonwealth. The veto means Virginia will remain in the unusual position of allowing adult possession and home cultivation while continuing to block a legal adult-use retail market. For ...
