Industry Analysis
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 […]
Why Understanding True Manufacturing Costs Is Essential for Cannabis Business Survival
The U.S. cannabis industry generated more than $30 billion in regulated sales in 2025, yet profitability has become harder to predict. According to a recent national index report by Cannabis Benchmarks, wholesale pricing remains volatile, recently fluctuating between approximately $987 and $1,007 per pound. In an environment where pricing moves faster than cost structures adapt, […]
Engineering Consistency: Inside the Push for GMP-Compliant Cannabis
As cannabis becomes a globally traded medical commodity, cGMP compliance is reshaping how it is grown, handled, and transported. For operators working with imported biomass, controlling contamination and ensuring consistency across supply chains has become a defining challenge. That challenge was a central focus at the International Cannabis Business Conference in Berlin, where a panel […]
Inconsistent Messaging Is a Compliance Risk. Full Stop.
Picture the moment a cannabis company’s compliance team gets copied on an email from a banking partner’s risk officer. The subject line says “Questions re: public materials.” Attached is a spreadsheet. On one side, language from the company’s Florida medical dispensary website. On the other, language from the California recreational site, the New Jersey acquisition […]
How to Evaluate Cannabis Packaging Suppliers Before You Commit
Cannabis packaging decisions have downstream consequences for compliance, operations, customer perception, and margins. This article offers a practical framework for evaluating packaging suppliers across five dimensions: compliance, product quality, operational fit, customization, and partnership reliability. It closes with a pre-commitment checklist that operators can use before signing any supplier agreement. Cannabis packaging is no longer […]