To have a conversation about cannabis in your state or any other jurisdiction, call Jamie at 302-750-9678 or schedule a conversation.
A mid-Atlanticcannabis advisory specializing in macro & micro strategy, expansion, M&A facilitation, industry intelligence, municipal outreach, and market mechanics for regulators, stakeholders, and operators in adult-use and medical marijuana markets.
I help cannabis companies see around corners, evaluate unknowns, and assign probability to near-term and long-term outcomes.
- communicate effectively in the language of policymakers:
- essential for eliminating stigma
- developing regulations
- obtaining licenses
- launching new facilities
- maintaining compliant operations
- anticipate and act on key inflection points in emerging cannabis markets
- grasp of policy-driven triggers (legislation, licensing, litigation, regulation, etc.)
- reinforce geographic focus
- extract alpha from complex or delayed markets
- deepest on the near-term's frothiest markets and the rollout of AU in
Ohio,
Massachusetts,
New Jersey,
Maryland, and
Delaware; preemptive movement in Virginia, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, and Texas.
- modeling state-based demand and supply imbalance
- preemptively mapping the price compression timetable
- facilitating M&A and reconciling highly-volatile valuations
- assessing, underwriting, and managing risks that break deals and waste scarce resources
levers and catalysts
> SAFER has been dangled as an addition to other bills but no one is taking the bait. The 12/18/25 Executive Order implied that banking would follow, but measures mixed in with Chokepoint, debanking, crypto, and the Bitcoin reserve may just be more Lucy holding the football for Charlie.
> Rescheduling:
Mid-February is the latest deadline to pass as Attorney General Pam Bondi has now been directed via EO to expedite the decision and give us a Final Rule or before 3/1/26.
Litigation will surely follow with an attempt at an injunction/stay to hold up implementation of the FR, though a judge may simply reject that on the grounds that the request is without merit.
- The FR is in the hands of DEA administrator Terry Cole and has been "days way" for a few weeks now
- DOJ will issue a final rule by publishing it in the Federal Register.
- The Final Rule will become effective 30 days after publication.
>
States:
Pennsylvania
will be hammering through imperfect legislation this session with Senator Joe Pittman finally caving thanks to rescheduling. The Commonwealth desperately needs the tax revenue so likeliest scenarios have
adult-use sales starting 1/1/27 and $3B modeled 2027 revenue.
Delaware adult-use sales began 8/1/25 but only through
14 incumbent medical dispensaries. New licensees are struggling to open, especially retail. A few manufacturing licensees are up and running and several new cultivators have flower on the market. MSOs like MariMed and The Cannabist are counting on lots of runway, especially on the wholesale front. Their largest moat is in Sussex County, even if Governor Matt Meyer's veto of SB 75 is overridden, where at least 2.5 million will visit before beach season ends.
- Monthly retail revenue for January 2026 down 10% MoM to $6.35MM but wholesale up 3% to $809K
- 2025 revenue $56MM
- 2026 revenue forecast between $85 -$120MM
- high end would require retails that now look like they won't open until year end at the earliest
Virginia has Abigail Spanberger and a motivated legislature so the particulars of their regulations will be ironed out shortly with AU sales by 11/1/26 at the earliest
The cannabis space is more daunting than ever in 2026.
And the stakes are now so much higher as industry mechanics develop in two dozen state-based markets. Cannabis isn't remotely recession-proof and the 7-10 year wait for federal legalization has completely turned off institutional investors. Schedule 1 doesn't help, nor does lack of banking, custody, uplisting, etc. Regulatory reform is a bad bet, the East Coast has quickly become cannabis country and even calculated growth requires outsized CAPEX.
Bearishly, the IRS has come right out and said that MSOs taking the 280E tax refunds ahead of time is uncool. The American Institute of CPAs has queried the Department of the Treasury and the Internal Revenue Service for guidance in advance of the impending transition. There may be a three-year lookback, but the IRS isn't going to give up all that coin without a fight.
Institutional capital and pubco uplisting is still beyond the horizon though some pensions and other allocators are looking to move money toward cannabis. While state-based banking reform has gained momentum, SAFER isn't happening until at least the fall, STATES disappeared, and intoxicating hemp will occupy any congressional bandwidth that opens up . Even some of the stronger holdout operators are starting to fold in the trickiest markets like California, Oregon, Oklahoma, Michigan, and Massachusetts.
As financing remains scarce, the pinch is felt industry wide with smaller single-state operators and cultivators nearly everywhere taking the biggest hit. Capital is far too constrained to sustain the measures of price compression and normalization being experienced across the heavily and even not so heavily taxed mature markets. Many operators are still trying to stand up licenses in NY, NJ, CT, OH, MD and DE and are starved for the necessary resources.
Call or text Jamie at 302-750-9678 today to discuss your current place in the cannabis industry and plans for the uncertainty and undeniable growth that lies ahead.
