Cannacurio #98: 2024 Q2 Licensing Round-Up

We are past the midpoint of 2024 and it is time to review which states have added and dropped licenses in the second quarter.  

In our Q1 review, we highlighted the states that were accelerating their rollouts or trying to add an adult use program to a medical one. However, in Q2 we were inundated with programs in turmoil:

• New York: Governor deems program rollout a “disaster” and director resigns
• Massachusetts: The Cannabis Control Commission may be taken over by a state receiver
• Missouri: Bureau of Investigations & Enforcement manager abruptly left his position and joins a growing list of resignations and exits within the division
• Connecticut:  The Executive Director of Social Equity Council resigned as the Council is the subject of an audit requested by the Governor

Being a cannabis regulator poses all sorts of challenges for the staff and industry stakeholders. Despite all this tumult, states did continue to issue licenses, but the overall quantity of licenses and facilities continued to decline – thanks to Oklahoma.

Key Findings

• 1,652 new licenses were issued for cultivation, manufacturers, and stores in Q2 2024, way up from the 862 issued in Q1 2024
• 20 states added stores, down from 24, 14 added manufacturing licenses, down from 18; and 14 added cultivation licenses – also down from 18
• Total Active licenses were down only 509 licenses since the end of Q1 at 37,945
• If we exclude Oklahoma, licenses are up nationwide 985 or 3.25% over the last 12 months, while facilities are up 6.1%

Not surprisingly, licenses and facilities move roughly in parallel because in many states a license equals a facility.

Overall

Q2 did not look like Q1 at all. April, May, and June all came in ahead of the largest months in the first quarter. New cultivation licenses accounted for 1,090 of the growth this quarter and 689 of those came from Michigan. Stores and Manufacturing licenses were issued at a pace close to Q1 levels.  

Activities

Here’s a recap of three of the major license types in the value chain.

Stores

• 316 new store licenses were issued in Q2 compared to 333 in Q1
• 4 states accounted for 56% of these licenses: New Mexico, Michigan, New Jersey, and Florida
• During the 2^nd Quarter Oklahoma shed 149 dispensary licenses

Here are the top 5 states that issued store licenses in the quarter:

Cultivation

• Cultivation licenses boomed in Q2, but only in Michigan
• Michigan added 689 issued in the quarter - and 498 came from 10 farms!
• Oklahoma culled 548 cultivation licenses during Q2

These 5 states issued the most cultivation licenses in Q2:

Here are the Michigan cultivators that secured 498 grow licenses:

Manufacturing

• 202 Manufacturing licenses were issued in Q2
• New Mexico issued 80 new licenses, with Michigan a distant second at 29
• Oklahoma lost 117 manufacturing licenses during the quarter

Conclusion

Over the last 12 months, there has been a gentle decline in licenses and facilities. In looking at the state-by-state detail, much of the decline can be traced to the deflation in Oklahoma. The same holds true for the “growth” in cultivation licenses in Q2. The vast majority were canopy expansions by ten Michigan farms.

The lesson here is that each state is still its own “sovereign nation”.  As a result, we will continue to research past the headlines to find out what is driving the increases and decreases nationwide. Our next posts will cover the details of key activities like stores, cultivation, and manufacturing.

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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