Personally, I don think that the playbook is broken. We have seen efficiencies in the business and we have see margins maintained while the industry faces increased cost compression and competition...and while adding acquisitions. I think the 'corporate' industry is broken. I think the issue continues to be that cannabis still remains the wild-wild west. I mean, the annual sales of the industry continue to grow. People enjoy cannabis more than chocolate! There is obviously a market. What there isn't is consistent regulation, national regulation, good legal operators, consistent product and national pricing. The legal hurdles and state-by-state markets cause a level of dissociation. Regardless of the 280E tax burden, the lack of national cannabis reform, in my opinion, is the culprit. If the nation would open to the industry then the industry, as a whole, would right size (over time). Cannabis would commoditize and the price would settle around pricing that is competitive with the (already existing) national illicit market. However, until then, corporate cannabis will continue to see ebbs and flows between cost compression and re-stabilization as new entrepreneurs try their hand at the green rush...and as operators in low (expense) grow locations illegally fuel markets where the pricing is favorable. But then again, maybe that is all a pipedream because one could argue that may never happen due to the way that each state has had to establish/regulate its own market...the capital deployment...the tax revenue...etc. The problem is, there is a national (illegal) market and the corporate cannabis model will always struggle until it can compete...and re-establish itself...on a level playing field.
