Blank Rome will host the 10th Annual Conference on the State of the Cannabis Industry on October 26, 2026, at the Omni Boston Hotel at the Seaport. Ten years in, this gathering has become one of the few recurring venues where multi-state operators, capital providers, and sitting regulators sit in the same room and talk plainly about what's actually broken in the cannabis business - and what might get fixed.
A Decade of Watching an Industry Try to Mature
Federal cannabis policy has moved at a crawl for most of the past ten years, and operators have built entire business models around that uncertainty. This year's agenda reflects that reality directly, with a roundtable dedicated to the potential rescheduling of cannabis to Schedule III. That shift wouldn't legalize cannabis federally, but it would ease the 280E tax burden that has squeezed margins at dispensaries and cultivators alike, since 280E currently bars cannabis businesses from deducting ordinary business expenses the way any other retailer can. Panelists will walk through what Schedule III would actually change for operators, investors, and researchers - and, just as important, what it wouldn't.
Capital, Consolidation, and the Hard Math of Staying Open
Access to credit remains one of the sharpest pain points in the industry, and the conference devotes real time to it. Representatives from Needham Bank, Chicago Atlantic, and Altmore Capital will discuss refinancing terms and investment strategy in a lending environment that still treats plant-touching businesses as higher-risk borrowers than almost any other legal retail category. A separate session on mergers, acquisitions, and restructuring will address how companies are consolidating - sometimes by choice, sometimes because the balance sheet left no other option. Wholesale pricing pressure and oversupply in mature markets have pushed some operators toward distressed sales rather than growth deals, and that tension is likely to run through both sessions.
State Regulation Still Decides Who Operates
Christopher Harding, Chair of the Massachusetts Cannabis Control Commission, will speak directly to operators and prospective entrants about the Commission's enforcement priorities. For anyone running a dispensary in Massachusetts, or weighing a license application there, this is the session that carries the most immediate operational weight - compliance logs, packaging standards, and licensing timelines all trace back to decisions made at the Commission level. Federal reform gets the headlines, but state regulators still set the daily rules on testing requirements, advertising limits, and retail buildout.
Marking Ten Years With a New Industry Honor
The event also launches the first Cannabis Industry Hall of Fame, recognizing Boris Jordan of Curaleaf, George Archos of Verano, and Charlie Bachtell of Cresco Labs. The three will join a panel moderated by Blank Rome partner Frank Segall to discuss how the industry has shifted since its earliest legal markets - from vertical integration strategies to the current push toward operational discipline over rapid expansion. Additional panels will cover payment processing, point-of-sale technology, and data analytics, areas where cashless-payment limitations and banking restrictions continue to shape how dispensaries manage daily transactions. The conference, co-chaired by Segall and fellow Blank Rome partner Scott Moskol, runs from 8:30 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. and is open to in-person and virtual attendees.
