Understanding Florida’s unique cannabis market

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Florida was one of the first states to legalize medicinal cannabis, through a 2016 constitutional amendment. The state’s cannabis market is unique in many ways: it’s dominated by one company, including an unusual breed of social justice cannabis license, and seven years of medical legalization has yet to expand to adult use. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ decision to run for US President has only heightened the national interest in understanding the state of the Florida cannabis market.

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In fact, Cannabiz Media’s database contains information about the Florida cannabis market that can help answer some of the key questions typically asked when thinking about cannabis in Florida. In this blog post, we will focus on three of these questions:

• Which companies are the market leaders in Florida?
• What Happens to Social Equity Licensing in Florida?
• What are the future prospects for the Florida cannabis market?

Market leader for cannabis in Florida

Florida has been described as “the largest and most lucrative medical cannabis market in the United States.” Florida’s more than 775,000 active medical cannabis patients (out of a total population of over 21 million) account for more than 20% of the nationwide registered patient population.

Any discussion of Florida’s cannabis market leaders usually begins with one company, Trulieve. Trulieve not only sells half of the state’s legal medicinal cannabis, but operates a total of 163 dispensaries nationwide. In October 2022, the company bought Arizona multi-state operator Harvest, which allowed it to add another 22 licenses in Florida and become the largest cannabis company in the country. As shown in Trulieve’s Cannabiz Media profile map (Figure 1), the company has physical offices in all regions of the country.

Figure 1: Trulieve Cannabis operations in the United States

Florida has a vertically integrated medical marijuana market, which means medical cannabis dispensary companies also need to grow, process, and ship their products. To date, neither legislative attempts nor court challenges have succeeded in removing this requirement for vertical integration. The value of these licenses is further enhanced as each license allows the holder to establish and operate an unlimited number of manufacturing and retail facilities within the state. Looking at the Cannabiz Media Companies database and filtering by Florida shows that Trulieve has 126 licensed facilities in the state, followed by Verano with 71 facilities, Ayr Wellness with 63 facilities and Curaleaf with 61 facilities (Figure 2).

Figure 2: Companies with the most licensed facilities in Florida

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In addition to the number of stores, checking the grams of THC sold in 2023 on the Sales & Product dashboard shows how far ahead Trulieve in Florida is:‍

Social justice‍

Florida’s approach to social justice cannabis licensing is truly different than any other US state. Social Justice licenses were not part of the 2016 ballot initiative known as Amendment 2, which received 71.3% of the vote, enough to legalize medicinal cannabis use in the state. But a year later, in 2017, when the Florida state legislature established requirements for licensing medicinal cannabis, it revoked a license for a black Florida farmer and tied eligibility for that license to “an applicant who is a recognized class member” of an earlier landmark lawsuit – Pigford v. Glickman 185 FRD 82 (DDC 1999). In the Pigford case, the courts found that the USDA discriminated against black farmers from 1983 to 1997.
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According to the Cannabiz Media Licenses database, twelve applicants applied for the special Pigford license. Given the limited number of licenses in the state, the value of the Pigford licenses has been estimated by some at $50 million. From these twelve, one applicant, Gwinn Brothers Farm License ID P004-2022, was selected on September 21, 2022 (Figure 3). The Gwinn license is currently pending for various regulatory and legal reasons, but state legislatures are also considering the issuance of additional licenses by the Department of Health.

Figure 3: Pending License for Gwinn Brothers Farm

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Governor DeSantis and Future Market Outlook

The number of medical cannabis patients in Florida has steadily increased since inception to date (Figure 4).‍

Figure 4: Monthly medical cannabis patient count in Florida

Future growth in the Florida cannabis market is likely to come from a number of different sources, including the issuance of additional medical licenses, increased per capita use by medical patients in Florida and the legalization of adult use which would open the market to all adults in Florida, as well as the large influx of tourists into the state.

The Brightfield Group predicted that Florida would end 2022 with 25 percent year-over-year growth to total medicinal cannabis sales of $1.7 billion. Earlier this year, the Florida state government began an application process for a new set of medical licenses, charging a $146,000 non-refundable fee for the application process alone. Those costs likely mean that the Florida market will continue to be dominated by large multi-state operators (MSOs).

In Florida, too, a truly epic tug-of-war is taking place between supporters and opponents of legalizing adult consumption. In May 2023, Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody asked the state Supreme Court to reject the recent adult personal use marijuana ballot initiative as unconstitutional. Proponents want to present the election initiative to voters in the 2024 general election and have collected more than 600,000 signatures.

A wild card for the future of the Florida market is Gov. DeSantis, who appears to have been trying to keep the industry at bay and was recently quoted as saying he would not legalize cannabis federally if elected president.‍

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Diploma‍

Of all the US states yet to legalize adult-use cannabis, Florida is one of the states under the most scrutiny due to its large and mature medical market and senior governor. With a large majority of Florida residents strongly supporting adult use and active efforts to bring voters another ballot initiative, full legalization could be just a few years away. But given the political uncertainty at both the state and federal levels, there are no guarantees. It’s also possible that the state will continue to be a purely medical market for years to come.

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About the authors

Harry Brelsford is Principal Analyst at The CannaTech Group, Dr. Paul Seaborn is an assistant professor at the University of Virginia’s McIntire School of Commerce.