Good morning.
Tune into our webinar at 12 Eastern: Banking Implications of Cannabis Rescheduling: What’s Next? We’ll chat with Shield Compliance CEO Tony Repanich, Blank Rome LLP Partner Scott Rome, and Dutchie VP Bryan Barash.
-JB, JR, ZH
Today’s newsletter is 717 words or about a 5-minute read.
💡 What’s the big deal?
ECONOMIC ANXIETY INDEX
The NuggMD-Cultivated Cannabis Consumer Economic Anxiety Index 📊
Driving the news: We’ve partnered with cannabis telehealth platform NuggMD to create the exclusive Cannabis Consumer Anxiety Index.
It’s part of our goal to bring robust economic insights to the burgeoning cannabis market. The data will be exclusive to Cultivated readers and we’ll update it on a quarterly basis.
Check it out:
Zoom in: NuggMD polled 430 cannabis consumers in legal markets from December 4 to January 5.
Consumers were asked: “to what degree do you think the economy will impact your spending on cannabis over the next three months?"
Overall, 52% said no impact, 27% said they’d spend a little less, and nearly 13% said they’d spend much less. Those numbers remain relatively flat since our last poll in October.
Why it matters: The Index provides cannabis industry stakeholders with a standardized measure of economic sentiment among the US cannabis consumer population.
By tracking forward-looking spending intentions, it offers insights into how the economic perceptions of cannabis consumers are affecting their spending.
📣 Quotable
“If you have capital to buy, whether that is on paper or cash itself, these assets are never going to be cheaper," said Cultivated Editor-in-Chief Jeremy Berke during last week's This Week in Cannabis Live.
The new year has already seen several high-profile mergers and acquisitions and Jeremy is predicting that more are on the horizon.
✍️ Apply for the waitlist today
On January 29th, Gotham and Cultivated will host our inaugural event: The Highrise.
The Highrise’s goal is to host an event where attendees represent the full breadth and depth of the cannabis industry in New York and throughout the country.
On Monday, we let those that were accepted know that they had seven days to buy their tickets. (If that’s you — be sure to make that purchase before Sunday night.)
If you still want to be be on the waitlist get your application in today » thehighrise.nyc
⏩ Quick hits
Texas lawmakers proposed regulations that would bar the sale of smokable flower containing THCA, coupled with significant fee hikes that could still put the estimated $5 billion hemp market in jeopardy.
Florida Secretary of State Cord Byrd pushed back against a lawsuit filed by the state's campaign to legalize through the ballot box. Byrd is defending his decision in court to invalidate 42,000 signatures from supposedly "inactive voters" and another 29,000 that were allegedly collected by out-of-state petitioners.
Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost rejected a petition intended to roll back the state's soon-to-be enacted law restricting hemp-derived THC products. Yost argued that the petition was misleading and that it omitted important facts.
Pennsylvania saw a slight drop in registered patients between Nov. 2025, and the year before, going from 440,733 to 439,381. The small decrease could indicate that more residents are crossing state lines to buy products from one of the five neighboring states with completely legal markets.
New Jersey Senate President Nicholas Scutari filed a bill that would allow cannabis operators to engage in interstate commerce in the event that cannabis is actually rescheduled.
🚀 Deals, launches, partnerships
Safe Harbor announced that it was partnering with Frontier Risk and AlphaRoot to add cannabis-specific insurance to their existing suite of banking, lending and financial service offerings.
🧪 Science & research
📰 What we’re reading
Why Most Cannabis COGS Would Fail an Audit -- and How Operators Can Fix It | Cannabis Industry Journal
19 States That Legalized Marijuana Use Nevertheless Say It Should Disqualify People From Owning Guns | Reason
Legal Marijuana Access Faces An Existential Threat in 2026, And We Must Fight Back | Marijuana Moment
Is M&A back? | Cannabis Musings