Industry Analysis
What Makes a Healthcare-Ready Cannabinoid Ingredient?
For much of the cannabinoid supply market, the model has been simple: make the molecule, test the batch, sell the material. If the product meets basic specifications, passes third-party testing, and can be produced at a competitive price, it is considered ready for market. That model has supported much of the consumer cannabinoid industry, where […]
You Aren’t Making a Profit Because Your Ordering Process is Jacked
Over the last several years, we have spent a lot of time studying how cannabis retailers make purchasing decisions. Not just which products they buy, or how much they buy, but the entire sequence of events that begins once a buyer decides inventory needs to be ordered. That sequence matters more than most operators realize. […]
Why Workforce Risk is Real and What it Means
Every conversation about cannabis risk follows the same script: Regulatory uncertainty, 280E, capital access, and maybe interstate commerce, depending on the room. None of that is wrong, and operators dealing with those pressures daily don’t need me to tell them they’re real. But after more than a decade working inside this industry, watching companies scale, […]
Hemp Beverage Expo 2026: Get in the Room Where the THC Beverage Industry Is Being Built
The Hemp Beverage Expo (HBE) heads into its second show this June in Austin, Texas, and the energy is full speed ahead — even with November 12th looming over the industry. With policy updates shifting rapidly and operators scrambling to brainstorm contingency plans, getting in the room with businesses and advocates from across the beverage […]
What the Wholesale Numbers Tell Us About Where Cannabis Markets Are Headed
LeafLink’s Wholesale Cannabis Pricing Guide, drawing on over 400,000 SKUs and billions of dollars in transaction data across 18 U.S. markets throughout 2025, paints a picture of the wholesale cannabis pricing continuing its downward march as markets mature and supply expands — with each market and product category telling a slightly different story. The Big […]
The Post-280E Opportunity: Turning Cannabis Risk Into an Asset
The April 2026 Department of Justice rescheduling order landed with the weight of a decade of advocacy behind it. For an industry that has watched every other legal sector deduct its rent, payroll, and marketing costs while cannabis operators paid taxes on money they never made, the optimism is more than justified. It is earned. […]
Dispensaries Are Winning on Google and Disappearing on ChatGPT
SOCi’s 2026 Local Visibility Index analyzed more than 350,000 business locations across 2,751 brands and found a gap every dispensary operator should take seriously. ChatGPT recommends 1.2% of those locations. Perplexity recommends 7.4%. Gemini reaches 11%. Google’s local 3-pack surfaces 35.9% of the same locations. That is not a small gap. It is a different […]
Your Banking Problem Is a Margin Problem
Most cannabis operators have a banking problem. For many, that means limited access to financial services, forcing the business to operate largely in cash and be unable to use the standard banking rails every other industry takes for granted. The banking conversation in this industry almost always stops at access. Can the business get an […]
Study Shows Consumers Want Clean Cannabis
Legalization has been framed as a turning point for cannabis safety, transparency, and adoption for years, but now, over a decade since recreational cannabis sales began, American consumers are taking a closer look and asking tougher questions about whether the industry is living up to that standard. What’s becoming clear is this: consumers are ready […]
CSQ Launches EU GMP Tool to Help Cannabis Businesses Break Into European Markets
As U.S. cannabis rescheduling moves forward and export opportunities to the European Union become available, a new certification tool to help producers prove their products meet EU standards and fight back against supply chain fraud is now available. CSQ (Cannabis Safety & Quality), the first ANAB-accredited cannabis and hemp safety and quality certification program, announced […]