2022 was a brutal year for US cannabis companies and some cannabis investors. The leading public stocks lost 66% of their value. New Cannabis Ventures’ American Cannabis Operator Index ended the year at 14.25, 88% below its all-time high of 118.22 set a seeming lifetime ago on 4/1/19, just after the top multi-state operators (MSOs) went public in 2018.

With Missouri and Maryland voting to legalize adult-use in November 2022, the ranks of states that have approved adult-use cannabis sales swelled to 21. But those were just two 2022 developments that continued the evolution of a cannabis landscape across the U.S.