2024, like every cannabis year that precedes it, was unique.  Over the last 12 months we had a presidential election, several state referenda, and the slow-moving rescheduling process.  Through it all, the regulators continued the hard work of standing up new programs, and issuing licenses, renewals, violations and recalls.  

Key Findings

• 6,799 new licenses were issued for all activities in 2024, up from 5132 in 2023.
• There were 39,755 active cannabis licenses, up from 38,917 + 2.1%
• Michigan, New York and Oklahoma all issued more than 1,000 licenses in 2024

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Cultivation, Manufacturing and Store licenses accounted for 91% of new licenses issued in 2024. Over the years it is illuminating to track the ratio of these licenses to each other.

• Cultivation licenses accounted for 54% of 2024’s new licenses, up from 46% in 2023.  
• Stores were 30% of new licenses down from 36%;
• New manufacturing licenses were 15%, slightly down from 18% in 2023.  

Given the moratoriums, oversupply, and pricing pressure, the growth in cultivation licenses is intriguing.

Here is the Leaderboard by state for 2024 with Michigan taking the crown – barely nudging out New York. This table includes all licensed activities:

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78% of Michigan’s licenses were for cultivation, 14.6% were for stores and only 6% were for manufacturing licenses.  New York had a different composite, respectively 17%, 40% and 17%. New York also issued 334 licenses for activities that were not cultivation, stores or manufacturing.

Regions

Although cannabis licenses are issued at the state level, and no cannabis is supposed to cross state lines, it is still interesting to look one level up at the regions.  

Cannabiz Media divides the US into the following regions: Northeast, Southeast, Midwest, Southwest and West.  In the graph below, we see a decline in the West and Southeast, which we would attribute to slowing mature markets; and limited license structures.  The Midwest and Northeast were fueled by Michigan and New York while Oklahoma’s rei-issuance of licenses drove growth in the Southwest.

Since most states build programs, and issue licenses – the spikes are like step functions where a lot of licenses are issued at once or in batches.  Then they settle into a kind of stasis.  There are outliers like Oklahoma that added rapidly and continues to shed almost as quickly.  Here are the states in each region:

Activities

While there are many types of licenses in the cannabis ecosystem, cultivation, manufacturing and stores make up about 90% of the licenses issued by states – and they are universally licensed in all jurisdictions.  In the next section we’ll look at the big three and how they fared in 2024.

Cultivation

The seed to sale value chain starts with plants in the ground and many observers and analysts track this license to gauge how the supply and price of cannabis will move.  In 2024, new licenses were up over 2023 but 63% of those new licenses came from just Michigan and Oklahoma. The tally of 3,369 new licenses is well off the peak of 9,010 in 2021.  

Cultivation Key Points

• 3,369 new cultivations licenses were issued in 2024, up from 2,253 in 2023
• Michigan led the nation with 1,079 new licenses and Oklahoma was close behind at 1,039
• The number of cultivation facilities dropped from 14,185 to 12,444

Here is the 2024 Cultivation Leaderboard:

Manufacturing

Manufacturing licenses continued to be the least volatile activity in terms of new license issuance.  We tallied 945 new licenses in 2024 with New York, New Mexico and Michigan atop the leaderboard.

Manufacturing Key Points

• 945 new manufacturing licenses were issued in 2024, up 27% from the 744 issued in 2023
• New York led and issued 264 (28%) with Michigan in the second spot with 166 (17.6%)
• The number of manufacturing facilities was relatively unchanged at 5,655, up from 5,629 last year

Dispensary/Retail

The number of stores or doors continues to be a key cannabis metric. The chart below shows the growth of both stores and licenses in the last twelve months. The proliferation of smoke, vape and hemp retailers is continuing to have an impact as there are many more points of distribution than ever before.  This is in addition to the legacy market.

Key Findings

• New York accounted for 533 (28%) of the newly issued licenses way up from 19 in 2023
• Michigan was second with 202 down from 243 last year with New Jersey third with 174 down from 224 last year
• The 4 top states issued 57% of the newly issued licenses – down from 60% last year.
• There were 12,349 stores holding 13,016 licenses at the end of 2024.  

The ratio of licenses to facilities is slowly shrinking.  In early 2023 there were approximately 108 licenses per 100 facilities.  By the end of 2024 that number had dehydrated to 105 licenses per 100 facilities. We think this is largely driven by administrative changes in states like Nevada and New Mexico where operators will not need separate medical and adult use licenses.

Compliance

Since our founding, Cannabiz Media has tracked violations and recalls.  Some states assiduously enforce the complex rules and regulations they have created, and we have normalized and categorized over 10,000 violations and 345 recalls.  

Key Points Violations & Recalls

• Not all states share this information
• The biggest markets, Michigan and California, are atop the leaderboard for violations
• California was active in 2024 in disseminating recalls to the public

Author

Ed Keating is a co-founder of Cannabiz Media and oversees the company’s data research and government relations efforts. He has spent his career working with and advising information companies in the compliance space. Ed has managed product, marketing, and sales while overseeing complex multi-jurisdictional product lines in the securities, corporate, UCC, safety, environmental, and human resource markets.  

At Cannabiz Media, Ed enjoys the challenge of working with regulators across the globe as he and his team gather corporate, financial, and license information to track the people, products, and businesses in the cannabis economy.  

Ed graduated from Hamilton College and received his MBA from the Kellogg School at Northwestern University

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