(Disclosure: Rose Law Group represents Copperstate Farms.)
By AZ Big Media
The Arizona cannabis industry celebrates its fifth anniversary this month, marking half a decade since voters in 2020 overwhelmingly approved legalized retail sales of cannabis products here.
Since then, the state’s cannabis industry has been a “Wild West” of sorts, riding the business cycles of jackrabbit-quick growth, regulatory confusion and market volatility into today’s intense competition and consolidation. This has required industry players to focus on efficiency and product differentiation to appeal to an array of consumers.
While these are all hallmarks of a developing and maturing business, they don’t make it easier to navigate. Companies born in Arizona have grown and evolved, or have left or been bought out. Companies from other states are seeking opportunities here. Some companies are either entering into product alliances or eschewing the traditional consumption market for wellness products.
In the midst of all this, we asked some executives: What will the next generation of cannabis look like in Arizona?
“The Arizona cannabis industry is in a full-swing market correction,” says Carolyn Riggs, vice president for sales and marketing at Copperstate Farms, an Arizona-grown brand and largest greenhouse cultivator in the country with an array of products and nine dispensaries around the state. The company’s flagship dispensary in Tempe is the site of a new 20,000 square-foot, state-of-the-art manufacturing, distribution and commercial kitchen facility.
