California’s cannabis industry has been struggling for years and data shows that a majority of license holders have thrown in the towel.
SFGate reviewed the state’s cannabis licensing data and found that the amount of inactive and surrendered licenses now greatly outnumbers the active ones.
More than 10,800 licenses are considered either canceled, expired, revoked, suspended, surrendered, in limited operations or not in operation.
That’s compared to about 8,500 active licenses.
Jonatan Cvetko, a cannabis advocate and executive director of the United Cannabis Business Association, told SFGate that the figures reflect a “total failure.”
But California Department of Cannabis Control spokesperson David Hafner said the numbers don’t actually show an industry in decline.
He pointed to a rule change allowing cultivators to consolidate smaller licenses into one larger license, which resulted in more than 1,000 inactive licenses.
