Periodically, we review new licenses added and total license counts by state. These census snapshots, derived from our Cannabiz Business Intelligence platform, show where new licenses are being created and where the balance of power is from market to market. Our customers use this information for go-to-market strategies as it may inform their sales territories, trade show planning, and marketing spend. The following table is the snapshot of new cultivation licenses added by month this year

Key Findings

1. California leads with Oklahoma a close second. However, the two year license moratorium should drop Oklahoma to zeros for the rest of the year.
2. The “Beast in the East” is finally rumbling. New York and Vermont have added 243 cultivation licenses, and 16 were announced this July in Connecticut. By this time last year, those three states had not issued any new cultivation licenses.
3. Six months into 2022 and 3,190 licenses have been added. In 2021, that number was 4,150. This is about 25% fewer licenses issued year over year.

And here are the top five states that added cultivation licenses in 2022:

Regulatory Changes

There are some regulatory policies that are or will be having an impact on cultivation licenses:

• California: Effective January 1, 2023, the California Department of Cannabis Control will be able to issue Large Indoor and Large Outdoor licenses, which are 22,000 square feet and greater than 1 acre, respectively. Will we see some growers consolidating licenses just for ease of compliance? Application fees for these licenses range from $1,555 to $8,655 with annual license fees pegged at $13,900 to $77,905. This will reduce the license count but probably not the canopy.
• Oklahoma: Starting August 1, 2022 and continuing through August 1, 2024, Oklahoma will stop accepting new grower, processor, and dispensary licenses. Existing license holders in good standing will we able to renew their licenses. The state has the option to shorten this window.
• Oregon: The state is still operating under a new license moratorium since January 2022.  

The table below is a snapshot of the total cultivation licenses by state as of June 30, 2022. Six states account for just about 90% of the licenses: California, Oklahoma, Michigan, Oregon, Colorado, and Washington.

Conclusion

The rate of license issuance is slowing, though 90% of the licenses exist in six states. The reduction in new licenses may help to chip away at the oversupply of cannabis and falling wholesale prices that cultivators have had to contend with. You can read the report we worked on with Wells Fargo that discussed that phenomenon here. 

As the Northeast grows and continues to add legitimate license holders, what will happen to the oversupply in the west that is being shipped east? We will continue to track these trends and will update you in future posts.

Cannabiz Media customers can stay up-to-date on these and other new licenses through our newsletters, alerts, and reports modules. Subscribe to our newsletter to receive these weekly reports delivered to your inbox. Or you can schedule a demo for more information on how to access the Cannabiz Media License Database yourself to dive further into this data.

About the 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 multijurisdictional 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.

Cannacurio is a weekly column from Cannabiz Media featuring insights from the most comprehensive license data platform. Catch up on Cannacurio posts and podcasts for the latest updates and intel.