Cannacurio #63: Year-End 2022 Pharmacy and Retailer Leaderboard

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Now that 2022 has come to a close, we would like to publish our annual roundup of which states have issued the most pharmacy/retailer licenses. Our review of 2021 showed that 2,602 licenses were issued and for 2022 the figure was 2,750. Four states accounted for 66% of newly issued licenses in 2022.

Important Findings

• Oklahoma accounted for 886 (32%) of the newly issued licenses.
• New Mexico finished second with 376.
• Oklahoma’s biggest licensing months came after the moratorium went into effect!
• At the end of 2022 there were 10,294 stores with 11,022 licenses.

Oklahoma is often referred to as the Wild West when it comes to cannabis licensing. The low barriers to entry and limited license caps have created an oversaturated market with limited controls. To counteract this, the Oklahoma Medical Marijuana Authority has issued a licensing moratorium that can last up to two years. While there may have been a rush to submit applications before the deadline, the state has issued more licenses in the last four months than it did in the first eight months of the year.

leaderboard

Looking at the 2,750 new licenses, it’s instructive to see which companies have added stores. Based on the Cannabiz Media License Database, here are the 13 companies that added 10 or more licenses:

Finally, the table below shows the final Cannabiz Media list of pharmacy/retail licenses as of December 31, 2022:

Conclusion

In our 2021 summary, we had 9,512 pharmacy and retail licenses. Although 2,602 were added, the industry had a net profit of 11,022 — a 15.9% increase over the previous year. Our Director of Regulatory Research noted this week that, for the first time ever, we are having three contiguous states instituting adult programs in New York, Connecticut and Rhode Island. The talk is also continuing in laggard markets like Wisconsin and Kansas.

A few other points to keep in mind:

• Tom Adams, CEO of GlobalGo Consulting, points to the southern US as a region to monitor, especially as Florida comes of age.
• Whitney Economics’ Beau Whitney recently published a report with Leafly’s warning that a vote against cannabis in local jurisdictions is an invitation for the black market to continue serving those areas.

Cannabiz Media expects licensing to increase thanks to new markets, and we’ll be watching Oklahoma to see if there’s a drop in issuance and business in the state as a whole.

About the author

Ed Keating is co-founder of Cannabiz Media and oversees the company’s data research and government relations. He has spent his career working with and advising information companies on compliance issues. Ed has led product, marketing and sales while overseeing complex, multi-jurisdictional product lines in the securities, corporate, UCC, security, environmental and human resources markets.

Cannabiz Media customers can stay up to date on these and other new licenses through our newsletter, notification and reporting modules. Subscribe to our newsletter to get these weekly reports in your inbox. Or you can schedule a demo to learn more about how to access the Cannabiz media license database yourself to dig deeper into this data.

‍Cannacurio is a weekly column from Cannabiz Media featuring insights from the most comprehensive licensing data platform. Check out Cannacurio’s posts and podcasts for the latest updates and information.