So I've been looking into the biggest weed stocks that were making moves back in late 2024, and honestly the cannabis industry landscape is pretty interesting right now even with all the headwinds it's been facing.

The thing is, 2024 was rough for cannabis companies in both the US and Canada. Regulatory reform basically stalled in both countries, which kept a lot of potential growth locked up. There was some hope when the DEA started looking at rescheduling cannabis from Schedule I to Schedule III, but the whole process has been slower than anyone expected. Still, companies in the space kept pushing forward with new products and expansion plans.

If you're curious about the biggest players, tracking the major cannabis ETFs gives you a solid starting point. The AdvisorShares Pure US Cannabis ETF and the Horizons Marijuana Life Sciences Index ETF held the largest positions in what were basically the market leaders at that time.

On the US side, Green Thumb Industries was sitting at the top with over a third of the MSOS ETF weight. They're running a massive multi-state operation out of Chicago with all these recognizable brands like Rythm and Beboe. Trulieve was right behind them, dominant in Florida and expanding into Arizona and Pennsylvania. Then you had Curaleaf, Verano, and Cresco Labs all playing major roles in different markets. These companies were vertically integrated, controlling everything from cultivation to retail.

The Canadian market looked different because it's actually legal federally. Cronos Group, SNDL, and Canopy Growth were the main names there. Canopy especially had that celebrity angle with Martha Stewart and Snoop Dogg collaborations. SNDL was dealing with past financial struggles but actually started seeing consecutive quarters of cannabis revenue growth by Q3 2024.

One interesting player that showed up in both ETFs was Innovative Industrial Properties, a REIT that basically leases real estate to cannabis companies. They were holding properties across 19 states and providing capital solutions when traditional financing wasn't really available for the industry.

Looking at the biggest weed stocks back then, the whole sector was pretty volatile. People investing in cannabis knew they were taking on higher risk, but the long-term thesis was about participating in a completely new market if regulations ever loosened up federally. The biggest weed stocks all had that same underlying story: waiting for the regulatory environment to catch up with the business reality on the ground.

The real question was always timing. Would federal legalization actually happen? Would states keep opening up? And would these biggest weed stocks finally get access to normal banking and financing? That uncertainty kept the whole sector in this weird holding pattern where fundamentals almost didn't matter as much as the next news cycle about rescheduling or a new state market opening.