Marijuana Business Factbook 2019

295 Appendix © Copyright 2020, Marijuana Business Daily , a division of Anne Holland Ventures Inc. You may NOT copy this Factbook, or make public the data and facts contained herein, in part or in whole. For more copies or editorial permissions, contact CustomerService@MJBizDaily.com or call (720) 213-5992, ext. 1. MJBIZDAILY.COM Examples of what we exclude consist of, but are not limited to, responses from those who: • Claim they operate plant-touching businesses in states that have not legalized medical or recreational cannabis • Claim they operate wholesale grows in states where such sales are not permitted • Operate plant-touching businesses outside the United States (though international companies in the ancillary services and technology/products or investing sectors that serve the U.S. market are included) We also adjust our methodology when we deem necessary to account for clear outliers so that the responses of a handful of companies don’t distort our data. State Data To the extent possible, all information in Chapter 2 is based on publicly reported data from state medical/recreational cannabis programs themselves. The amount and type of publicly reported information available on medical/recreational marijuana programs varies considerably by state. Many states provide only a basic overview of their programs, and only a handful provide sales- related data. Our analysts use patient registries, tax records, regulatory documents, program reports produced by the state, news reports and any other available data source to gather this information. This also includes directly contacting the relevant regulatory agencies when necessary to collect additional data. We then review the gathered information and assess it for accuracy and reasonableness based on our extensive experience covering all aspects of this industry. In cases where statistics and figures are unreliable or unavailable, we develop estimates based on a wide variety of sources, including state and municipal regulations; survey and interview data with companies in the region; population and patient demographics, and comparisons to similar states with higher-quality documentation. Lastly, in some cases we leverage our extensive network of knowledgeable sources to review the final figures and provide feedback. State-level information and conditions are continually changing. Our cutoff date for information updates was late January 2020 for the purposes of going to press. However, some data is reflective of conditions as of late May. For updates on particular states since then, please see the News by State tab on our main website, www.MJBizDaily.com . Sales Projections As with everything in this report, we take a conservative approach to our sales estimates and projections based on a belief that it’s more prudent for business owners and investors to prepare for the worst and hope for the best. This is not to say we take a pessimistic outlook on the industry and its trajectory, but rather that we are keeping our feet firmly planted on the ground. Overall, our sales projections incorporate a variety of factors, including our state-by-state data, sales and regulatory trends, qualifying conditions, average patient/consumer spend, patient access to dispensaries, restrictions on the types of marijuana allowed for sale, extrapolations from other markets that release public information about their programs, survey data, and a healthy dose of professional judgment based on our experiences of covering these markets as they have played out for the past seven years.