Marijuana is changing the $32 billion industry

An email obtained by The Times shows that a committee leader, Representative Sharon Wylie, an industry advocate, shared a draft of the bill with a cannabis lobbyist. “Thank you for being open to the compromise approach,” she wrote.

In an interview, Ms. Wylie said that “the jury is still out on the potential harms of cannabis and that regulated business brings revenue to the state.

Ms. Davis doesn't give up. She plans to introduce legislation to another committee this month that would ban all concentrates above 35 percent THC, with exemptions for medical use.

“The industry needs boundaries,” she said.

METHODOLOGY

The New York Times examined sales data from two cannabis industry data companies BDSA and Headset for October 2023 through September 2024. Because the two companies' rankings differed slightly, the Times looked at all brands included in the two companies' top 20 list -24-24 total brands.

Reporters then found each brand's page on Weedmaps, where available. Four were excluded because they lacked weed control, had no product-specific descriptions in their listings, or had very few products listed.

In November 2024, the Times downloaded the entire Weedmaps product catalog for each of the remaining 20 brands: a dataset containing nearly 18,000 products. The Times identified dozens of medical and health-related keywords that appeared in the descriptions. For each brand, reporters confirmed that the keywords were used to suggest that products could help treat specific health problems.

After reaching out to the brands, the Times re-examined the Weedmaps descriptions for all products in the initial analysis to see if any of the health-related language was removed.

WeedMaps listings do not necessarily include all products sold under a particular brand and may reflect some items that are no longer widely available.

The Times conducted a separate analysis of health claims on Stiiizy's website, focusing on its guides to individual cannabis strains. Each guide included the strain's flavors, supposed effects, and conditions it “helps” with. The Times programmatically identified 82 of these guides in December and January based on the site's sitemap and extracted terms listed in each one.

Carson Kessler contributed reporting and Julie Tate contributed research.