Reflecting on the past year, I’ve attended eleven major events as part of my role as Principal Consultant of Grass Goddess Consulting. In addition to these events, I attended numerous others including five Blunt Brunch gatherings, several San Diego Farmers Cup events, and a handful of others. After some thought, I’ve come up with takeaways that I thought would be interesting to share.
The first conference I attended in 2024 was Cannadatacon in Miami, Florida. It’s a smaller, more focused gathering with high-quality interactions and conversations. My main takeaways were that cannabis is starting to appreciate data and collaboration is critical. Collaboration will end up being a common thread throughout the year, something highlighted at my first conference.
Next up was Hall of Flowers in Ventura. It was my first HOF which is pretty intimidating and my takeaways were that there are still a lot of operators in California despite shrinkage and that celebrities can be polarizing. There was a lot of chatter after HOF Ventura about which celebrities were there and if it was okay and who should be talking about it. It honestly overshadowed the rest of the post-show discussion.
NECANN (New England Cannabis Convention) Boston was my first conference in New England and I was excited to go back to a place I called home for a couple of years. Massachusetts is an exciting, fairly mature market that has had less issues compared to others. There’s lots of innovation and exciting research coming from the industry that was being highlighted at this show.
Next up, NECANN IL is a much smaller version compared to the Boston conference. It’s a market that I’ve been closely involved with and social equity has been a rollercoaster (which is not unique) but it was encouraging to see it is on an upswing and the industry is growing, though still very slowly.
The Parabola Center is an organization that focuses on keeping monopolies out of cannabis and held a crash course over the summer on policy and advocacy. The main takeaways being that activism needs to happen all the time and we each need to do our part while remembering those that fought before us.
Emerald Cup was celebrating the 20th anniversary of the world-famous cannabis competition in Oakland, California. Those close to the show know that the event almost didn’t happen due to numerous setbacks and hurdles but CA cannabis is not for the faint of heart and the people involved persevered just like those in the industry have and put on a great event.
Just around the time summer came to an end, Hall of Flowers happened in Santa Rosa. It was not only the traditional marketplace but expanded to a festival day for the public. It was a big success and, along with the California State Fair a couple of months prior, demonstrated that there is a market for events outside of the industry. I’m curious if the expansion of these types of events might just be the jolt the CA market needs to get through the tough year ahead.
Meadowlands is known as ‘summer camp for stoners’ but it is so much more. It’s a gathering of leaders in the industry to converse, strategize and come up with solutions. With the hemp ban, tax increase next year and many other challenges, we saw California advocates come together to try and cause change because it’s the last chance before the industry implodes. My takeaway is don’t count California out.
Benzinga Chicago was the first conference I attended that focused on the national level and what a difference that makes. Despite little federal movement, the industry is growing state-by-state. We have potential rescheduling on the horizon and there is some optimism. Each state has their own challenges but progress is being made and there are good people in the industry that are trying to take lessons learned to do better in newer markets.
Post-election Benzinga had a California market spotlight in Anaheim.The industry was mixed on election results and results overall were not pro-cannabis but not much changed in the state and CA is still the cultural leader in the world when it comes to cannabis. Innovation is happening and there are some success stories but there is a real threat to the industry that cannot be ignored with overtaxation and a persistent illicit market.
MJBizCon is the perfect year-ending gathering of the entire cannabis industry. It’s been a tough year but there are some glimmers of hope including rescheduling. In addition, social equity and justice have been in the spotlight and the industry has come together during this pivotal political time to bring awareness to federal prisoners still locked up for non-violent cannabis crimes. There have been numerous campaigns including #freeedwinrubis led by industry activists trying to get Joe Biden’s attention to grant clemency to people like Edwin Rubis before he leaves office.
Cannabis is tough and it’s not going to get much easier any time soon. Success stories often are centered around collaboration instead of competition and I strongly believe that is the way we need to move forward to succeed. I do think there was slightly more optimism this year compared to last year but next year is going to be tough and rescheduling is a big wild card. I continue to be hopeful that rescheduling will help the industry get over some hurdles with better cash flow.