Tag: Featured Story

Medical cannabis businesses have until June 26 to preserve expedited DEA registration review. Cannabis Business Advisors founder Sara Gullickson explains why the filing should prompt a hard look at license records, ownership disclosures, product flows, SOPs, security controls, and traceability before federal oversight becomes more consequential.

Hemp beverage operators are preparing for several possible futures as a federal ban on intoxicating hemp-derived cannabinoids approaches. At Hemp Beverage Expo, panelists urged brands to review cash flow, contracts, supply chains, tax exposure, insurance, and customer data while weighing pivots to non-hemp functional beverages, alcohol, or a temporary scale-back.

State-licensed medical cannabis operators have days to submit DEA registration applications and preserve expedited review protections under the Blanche rescheduling order. The June 26 business deadline applies across the medical supply chain, including cultivators, manufacturers, distributors, and dispensaries.

AI tools are beginning to shape cannabis shoppers’ intent before they reach a dispensary menu or walk into a store. Consumers who ask ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, or other answer engines about formats, dosing, occasions, and local retailers may arrive already partly pre-qualified. For dispensaries, that changes the role of education. Product pages, menus, local landing pages, structured data, and budtender training all must work together so retailers can turn AI-driven curiosity into high-intent traffic.

Federal rescheduling may give cannabis operators more than tax relief and investor confidence. The next real growth opportunity lies in building medical cannabis into healthcare infrastructure: provider visibility, compliant data systems, patient records, eligibility verification, education, and reimbursement pathways. Retail discipline helped the industry mature, but healthcare legitimacy will require operators to support patients, not just sell products.

The accessories case may not look like a revolution, but it might be one of the cleanest margin opportunities dispensaries have left. Grinders, trays, papers, storage jars, and other add-ons can lift basket size, improve the customer experience, and give retailers a profitable category that does not depend on wholesale prices or federal tax reform.

AI already is embedded in many dispensary operations, from point-of-sale forecasting and online menu recommendations to loyalty segmentation, compliance reporting, and security systems. The retailers gaining ground are not necessarily buying the flashiest new tools. They are learning to use, deliberately, the technology already in their stack, turning everyday data into faster decisions, sharper operations, and more durable competitive advantage.

The elimination of 280E is the biggest brand-building moment for the cannabis industry this decade. As capital returns to balance sheets, the ultimate competitive advantage will go to operators who invest in high-authority digital assets, earned media, and advanced search visibility. Here’s how to turn a tax windfall into permanent brand authority.

Before a single witness testifies at the DEA’s June 29 marijuana rescheduling hearing, the most consequential decision may already be made: who gets into the room. Finalizing the approved participant roster on June 22 is the first real indicator of whether the federal government intends to face the multi-billion-dollar commercial reality of the market — or bury it in administrative bureaucracy.

Trulieve Cannabis Corp. has received approval to list on the New York Stock Exchange beginning June 10 under ticker symbol TRLV. Marking a historic shift for U.S. plant-touching operators, the company paved its path to the major exchange by executing a strategic corporate restructuring to maintain a 100-percent medical consolidated footprint following federal Schedule III reclassification.