Following up on our recent overview of Q2 licensing, we now delve into the Q2 2024 cultivation licenses. These “census” snapshots derived from our Cannabiz Business Intelligence platform show where new licenses are being created.  

Key Findings

1. 14 states added cultivation licenses – down from 18 in the first quarter
2. Regulators issued 1,090 cultivation licenses in Q2, higher than Q1’s 289
3. 5 states accounted for 94% of these new licenses – with Michigan responsible for 63%
4. California leads the country with 5,167 active cultivation licenses

The following table is the quarter-end snapshot of new cultivation licenses added by month in Q2 for the top 10 states. The complete list of issuing states is available on our Cannabis Market Intelligence Platform www.cannabiz.media.

Key Markets

The following table compares the quantity of new cultivation licenses over the last six quarters – also included is a column showing the impact of Michigan over that time period:

Michigan

Michigan added 689 issued in the quarter- and 498 came from 10 farms! Here are the Michigan cultivators that secured 498 grow licenses:

The above case is rare where 10 growers can create such a “spike” in the market, but by analyzing the data we were able to pinpoint it to just a handful of growers, rather than some national trend.

California

California ended the quarter with 5,167 licenses, slightly down from Q1’s 5,368 (-3,7%). Facilities, which we define as a business with multiple licenses at one location, were also down slightly from 3,153 to 3,087 (-2%).  

The graph below shows the relationship between California’s cultivation licenses and facilities over the last 12 months. The line graph depicts the average licenses per facility which has declined from 1.96 to 1.7 over that time. Some of this drop could be attributed to the Large Indoor and Large Outdoor licenses which have been issued in the last eighteen months. California now has 59 active large licenses so far and 50 of those are Outdoor.

Oklahoma

The story in OK has been well documented in this blog. Between the license moratorium and increased enforcement – the trend continued to be downward. Based on our count, the state has shed 2,911 cultivation licenses in the last 12 months.

Conclusion

The leaderboard below shows the top 10 states and the number of cultivation licenses we are tracking.  The nationwide total is down by only 240 (1.3%) from Q1 2024. The quarter ended with 17,659 active licenses. The complete list of issuing states is available on our Cannabis Market Intelligence Platform www.cannabiz.media.

The vast majority of cultivation licenses are still centered in a handful of states. The top 10 above account for 90% of the cultivation licenses in the US. Unchanged from last quarter are all the moratoriums in Vermont, Oklahoma, and Oregon. The tectonic pull of Oklahoma is still strong as regulators reduce canopy size and extinguish illicit operations. If we exclude Oklahoma from our analysis, cultivation licenses would be up 2.2% nationally from the end of Q1.

In the coming quarter we’ll be monitoring Ohio, Delaware and Minnesota as their programs evolve.  We’ll also be tracking the likely license contraction as Michigan contemplates moving to one license for Med and Adult rather than separate ones. California enacted a similar program which reduced complexity and licensing fees.

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.

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.

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