Florida Tracker
Sales in Florida dropped this past week dramatically, with THC sales down 29% and CBD sales dropped 33%. With Trulieve's closing the acquisition of Harvest, we have added Harvest's locations to Trulieve's footprint on our tracker. As a result, Trulieve's market share will increase in the coming weeks on top of the current accelerating trend. Other than Trulieve, Verano, Surterra, and VidaCann have increased market share.
NJ Licenses
New Jersey has announced its cannabis regulatory commission meeting on 10/15 to award licenses. These applications were initially opened on July 1, 2019. These applications will only be for medicinal licenses for now, but these businesses can eventually pay a fee and become eligible for recreational sales. This will only happen when recreational sales officially begin sometime in February 2022. The pool of applicants has been narrowed down to 150. Fifteen retail licenses, five cultivation licenses, and four vertically integrated licenses will be awarded. New Jersey has had tremendous growth in the patient count, which now stands at 117,000. Despite this, there are only 23 total dispensaries in the state. Apart from this meeting, there will be one more in November and December to award more licenses to prospective applicants.
We believe that Best Idea LONG FFNTF has a better than average shot at obtaining one of these licenses.
Warren Booker Letter
This past week, Senators Elizabeth Warren and Cory Booker sent a letter to the Justice Department should initiate a descheduling process to "allow states to regulate cannabis as they see fit, begin to remedy the harm caused by decades of racial disparities in enforcement of cannabis laws, and facilitate valuable medical research." "It is far past time to decriminalize the use of cannabis in the United States," it continues. In the letter, they bring up how marijuana policy has disproportionately affected minority groups. Merrick Garland, the Attorney General, has occasionally spoken about cannabis issues. But in his confirmation proceedings, he stated that it is a waste of federal resources to go after people in compliance with state cannabis laws. He also recognized racial disparities in marijuana enforcement. Warren and Booker request Garland's response by October 20.
