Florida’s medical marijuana industry – Florida's second fastest grower
Bottom Line: Today I’ve taken a look at Florida’s two fastest growth industries. While I’ll save the suspense of Florida’s fastest grower for the other story, there’s no suspense here. The pandemic may have slowed most industries down in our state and across the country, that certainty wasn’t the case for cannabis. Florida’s second fastest growth industry during the pandemic has been medical marijuana. With an average of more than 3,000 new patients per week, Florida now exceeds a half million active, authorized, users of medical marijuana according to Florida Health’s most recent report. Between March 19th 2020 and March 19th this year here’s what’s happened:
- 183,127 more medical marijuana card holders, or 501 patients per day
- 56% year over year growth in total patients
What’s interesting though, is that the number of doctors who are authorized to recommend medical marijuana has dropped. There are actually 30 fewer doctors working in the medical marijuana space today than were doing so a year ago. Is that a pandemic related story? Hard to tell but its possible most doctors weren’t successful operating in that space despite the rapid growth. We’ve seen a similar story play out in the retail medical marijuana space. While 22 companies are currently authorized to sell medical marijuana in Florida, the top two – Trulieve and Surterra Wellness, have more businesses than the other twenty companies combined.
As Florida’s now nearly four years into the age of medical marijuana, what we’re seeing is that the saying a “rising tide lifts all boats”, no longer applies. There are very clear winners in losers in this space as it’s maturing. That appears to be true regarding physicians who entered the space and it’s certainly true of the companies dispensing the products. This maturation of the industry is probably a good thing for it overall. Greater consistency of experience and products can aid credibility within it.
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