Smoking a joint with your siblings is a sacred teenage tradition, something that bonds you across clouds of smoke—a furtive secret you all keep from your parents. For the five Savocchi siblings, it seemed an innocent enough past time during their childhood in Queens. But it was also prequel to their eventual entry into New York’ adult-use cannabis industry. 

Now, on the streets of Tribeca, locals, tourists, and medical patients alike can stop and smell both the literal and cannabis flowers of Alto dispensary. It’s quite literally a family affair—siblings André, Stephanie, Nicole, Daniela, and Sarah, and parents Guido and Sandra man the ship and tend the bar, even as most of them juggle day jobs (for now).

“It’s been a wild ride to get here.”

Nicole Savocchi

The five siblings smoked together, but their parents were hip too—it was Guido’s cannabis arrest in the ‘90s that qualified them for the license, though the interest had been there for years. Sandra was the first to alert the family after hearing about the passing of the Marijuana Regulation and Taxation Act in 2021. 

“I heard it on the radio going to work,” she says. “When I heard that this program was available, I’m like, ‘this is for us.’ Right away, I phoned André, and I said, ‘I just heard this, this and this. It’s going to be a difficult process I hear, but we have to do it.’ And he ran with it.”

André is the baby of the family, but he’s the driving force behind Alto. He’d delved the deepest into the cannabis world, including research in other states, and is the only sibling full-time at the store. During its intense renovation, he donned a white hazmat suit and got his hands dirty.

He also curates the store’s menu, which includes multi-state brands like Wyld Gummies, Kiva Confections, and Select vapes as well as local hits like MFNY concentrates and Umami flower. The menu has to reflect all the multitudes of New York, just like the shop’s environment.

Customers waltzing through Tribeca’s artsy alleys won’t find anyone not named Savocchi on the floor by design. It should feel like coming to your cool family friend’s house, whether you want something to liven up your evening or have a need for something medicinal.

If you don’t partake, you can still buy the other kind of flowers in the front of the store. Alto’s Tribeca shop also has a second-floor space that will one day (Office of Cannabis Management permitting) become an events and consumption lounge.

Until then, if you’re in Tribeca, why not stop in and smell the flowers?

“I think when we’re all together, we’re not workers. We all have that level of dedication. People walk in, they’re like, ‘Oh, this feels so nice here. This definitely feels like a family vibe,’ even before they even know we’re family. They can actually feel that energy.”

Stephanie Savocchi

What exactly is a billion dollars? Well, it’s the amount of money you’d make on a North American tour…if you were Taylor Swift. Or the stack of cash that Deadpool & Wolverine brought in at the box office. Or the estimated GDP of the South Pacific Ocean nation of Vanuatu.

When it comes to cannabis, the figure offers a snapshot of a state industry’s strength. But it doesn’t necessarily reflect population data. Nor is it limited to states that have boasted legal weed for a long time, or even states that have rec programs at all.

As we dive headfirst into 2025, we’ve put together a list of the states that crossed the $1 billion threshold last year, as well as some of the market trends those states illuminated. Buckle up, and prepare to be surprised.

Arizona

In 2024, Arizona fell hundreds of millions of dollars short of maintaining the epic sales run it had in 2023—that year, retailers sold $1.4 billion of cannabis. Nevertheless, Arizona held on to its status as a member of the “Billion Dollar” club in 2024. Last year, Arizona also continued to see its share of medical marijuana revenue shrink; it was down to about 17% of total sales, from 21% the year prior.

California

Despite its huge illicit market, California remains The Big Kahuna of cannabis. In 2024, the Golden State sold an estimated $4.27 billion of legal weed. According to state data, flower comprised nearly 40% of all sales, vapes counted for about a quarter of sales, and edibles made up roughly 10%. California was the first state to legalize medical marijuana in 1996, but medical marijuana only comprised 8% of total cannabis sales in 2024.

Colorado

The Colorado cannabis industry, alas, did not have a great 2024. Wholesale prices fell, and the state reported $1.28 billion sales, its lowest numbers since 2015. As our friend Mona Zhang at Politico reported last year, the trend has other states worried. Here’s to hoping Colorado has a big 2025!

Florida

Even though Florida failed to pass adult-use legalization last November (thanks to the state’s 60% vote threshold), the Sunshine State’s medical program still outpaces many of its fully legal peers. According to data from the Brightfield Group, Florida dispensaries sold $2.1 billion of medical marijuana in 2024. 

Illinois

Unlike some of the original rec states, Illinois saw its cannabis market continue to grow in 2024: The state sold nearly $1.8 billion of marijuana, a high point since sales began in 2020. In more good news, Illinois has officially expunged over 20,000 cannabis-related convictions since 2020. A big bravo to the Land of Lincoln!

Maryland

Even though Maryland only launched its rec program in July 2023, the state industry has blossomed rapidly. In the 2024 calendar year, Maryland generated $1.14 billion in adult-use and medical marijuana sales. We suspect that’s resulted in a significant bump to the state’s Old Bay-dusted crab leg market as well.

Massachusetts

It ain’t just Illinois. Massachusetts also had its biggest sales year ever in 2024: A grand total of $1.64 billion of cannabis. Shout-out to the state’s Cannabis Control Commission for highlighting Worcester County as the “cannabis capital of Massachusetts”—$1.4 billion of sales have occurred there since 2018!

Michigan

Even though it now faces competition from neighboring Ohio, Michigan still pulled off a record year in 2024. The Great Lake State sold $3.29 billion of cannabis last year, a 7% increase from 2023. And for context, Michigan has only one-quarter the population of California, but three-quarters the amount of cannabis sales. Wolverines love their weed! 

Missouri

Missouri’s adult-use program only launched two years ago, but business is booming in the Show-Me State. In 2024, retailers there sold $1.4 billion of cannabis. According to LKP Impact Consulting, men purchased nearly two-thirds of all that pot, and Millennials made up 40% of all shoppers. 

Pennsylvania

While the eternal legal pot booster Senator John Fetterman has yet to seal the deal in his home state, Pennsylvania’s medical market is still doing big business. Dispensaries sold over $1.6 billion of medical marijuana in 2024 to over 440,000 patients. Unlike in Colorado, rapidly sinking wholesale prices in Pennsylvania led to more purchases, not less.

Washington

Cannabis sales in Washington State have been on a minor but consistent decline for the past few years, but the state is nonetheless expected to have generated $1.2 billion in 2024, when all the numbers get crunched. That’s roughly the same sales total as Colorado, even though Washington is home to nearly two million more people.

See, we told you there would be some surprises!

At least 11 states racked up medical and adult-use cannabis sales over $1 billion in 2024. Don’t forget—you can double those totals when you count illicit cannabis, too. Nearly 88% of US voters now support medical or adult-use. It’s clear that cannabis is huge, and states can choose to either reasonably regulate and tax it, or hand over those dollars to the streets or competing states.

Growing up in the Palisades neighborhood of Los Angeles, Emmett Reiner and Jackson Wootton knew they wanted to innovate. They had a nearly-daily standing appointment at their favorite taco truck where they talked about the future, and how they’d grow their nascent cannabis business, Uava Labs, after graduating from Colorado University Boulder this spring.

On January 10, they’d just officially launched their vape pen device weeks earlier, and were soaking up some sun at the beach last week before their return to a snowy Colorado winter. Then they saw the smoke.    

“We were just like, ‘Oh, there’s another California wildfire,’” says Reiner. But it wasn’t. “I turn around and it was just smoke everywhere. We’re on the beach and I hear this plane come, diving down, like, right in front. I used to volunteer for the fire department. I was like, ‘Oh, that is not good Jackson.’”

Reiner had been an Eagle Scout and a volunteer firefighter with the LAFD. He called his dad, drove home, and packed a go bag; Jackson did the same. They didn’t pack much, assuming they’d get to return to their homes the next day; Californians are no strangers to wildfires. They never anticipated that they’d never get to go back. 

With their parents and grandparents evacuated, Wootton and Reiner stayed with a friend who lived in a safe zone. They slept fitfully that first night; Reiner was covered in soot. The next morning they woke in a panic—hundreds of units of their pens were still at Wootton’s house. 

“We don’t have the money to replace that. We’re college kids,” says Reiner. “Our last three years are wasted if we don’t get back in there.”

They got in the car and went back into the fray, claiming they were with the media to get past the police blockade. Palisades High, Reiner’s school, was gone; the village center was gone; car wheels had melted into the ground. The Uava batteries, blessedly, were unharmed. They threw them in the car and drove out of the danger zone. 

“Just driving around, it was like the end of the world. It was like a war zone.”

Jackson Wootton

As of writing, the two largest wildfires, Palisades and Eaton, have collectively burned nearly 38,000 acres—that’s over two Manhattans, or over 28,000 football fields. Thousands have lost their homes, cannot return to their jobs, or have evacuated away from their communities and ways of life. The fires are still far from full containment, and many of the over 150,000 displaced residents have no home to return to. It’s in times like these that communities come together, and no one knows that better than cannabis people. 

America’s cannabis capital activates to help

Los Angeles is the entertainment capital of the country, but it’s also the unofficial cannabis capital of California, with over 1,400 licensed dispensaries, cultivators, processors, and ancillary businesses. Already, many have jumped to help their neighbors, customers, and employees with PPE, clothing, food, water, and cash. 

This desire often comes from cannabis operators who’ve been victims of previous wildfires. As soon as George Sadler heard about the fires in Los Angeles, he sprung into action from his home in San Diego. Sadler knew the stakes—in 2012, he lost everything in the Potrero wildfire. His house, his crop, his sense of security. 

“I lost every single thing that I owned. So I know what this whole thing is like,” he says. “You think it’s just a fire. We’re at the tail end of what’s going on, but that’s just the flames. That’s not what this is leaving.”

For the last week, Sadler, who founded his cannabis company Gelato Canna Co in 2022, has been driving up supplies and cases of his water brand Gelato water to impacted neighborhoods. He estimates he’s sent over 120,000 cans to donation spots, first responders, and animal shelters.

Water is essential to human survival, and so is cash. Embarc dispensary started a Gofundme with a starting pledge of $16,000; in five days they’re only a few thousand short of their $60,000 goal. 

The Artist Tree, which operates four dispensaries in the Los Angeles area, has launched a donation match website with a pledge of $25,000 for the California Community Foundation’s Wildfire Recovery Fund, which works directly with the most vulnerable communities across Los Angeles. They are also accepting donations for their local YMCA location in Koreatown. At the end of the month, they plan to host a fundraiser concert. 

Lauren Fontein, one of The Artist Tree co-founders, knows how important aid can be to struggling communities from how hard it is to run a cannabis business in the best of times.

“Insurance [premiums are] going to be big. We already have to pay very high insurance rates as a cannabis business in general. The rates go up every year anyway, but I can only imagine what’s going to happen in the aftermath of these fires. People have already been struggling with a lot of other issues.”

Fires not only destabilize people’s health, homes, and jobs, but also their sense of culture. Rapper and Los Angeles native B-Real has been speaking about the fires and resources for those impacted on his podcast, BREALTV, daily. His dispensary chain, Dr Greenthumb’s, is accepting and distributing donations at their West LA location. Dr Greenthumb’s CMO Kim Barker says they’ve helped their own employees as they apply for FEMA, and have made multiple trips to COSTCO for supplies. 

“When you leave with just the clothes on your back, you know, like, oh, wow, six new pairs of socks. One thing I don’t have to think about,” she says. “We want to have relationships with the businesses around us, and we want to have relationships with the people. Because we want to be that good neighbor.”

Verified aid resource to donate to

Unfortunately, not everyone wants to be a good neighbor. Not every fundraiser has good intentions. The list of resources below come directly from organizations and have been verified. We will update this document with additional information as it arises. 

Resources

Mutual Aid LA’s Fire & Wind Storm resources spreadsheet

Red Cross shelters

Housing and tenant information

Transitional Sheltering Assistance through FEMA

Find a FEMA Disaster Recovery Shelter

Care Camps for youth recreation:

Teladoc virtual medical care

California Department of Insurance wildfire resources

Free childcare, wifi, and showers at YMCA locations

Funds and loans

Apply for a SAVE card from the California Fire Foundation ($250)

Home, business and economic injury disaster loans

FEMA application and assistance with your application 

LA County recovery centers

Grants from the Department of Social Services

Where to donate

Direct Relief

Gofundme’s LA donation hub 

Embarc’s United Cannabis Community Gofundme

LA Regional Food Bank

The Artist Tree’s Wildfire Fund

California Community Foundation Wildfire Fund

National Voluntary Organizations Active in Disaster

Los Angeles Food Pantries

Vouchers

Hotel vouchers through LA 211, Hilton, and American Express

Hotel offers in San Diego

Uber users can use code WILDFIRE25 to get a $40 credit to a shelter within Los Angeles county.

Airbnb temporary housing

Cannabis relief and resources

Disaster Relief from the Department of Cannabis Control

California State of Emergency Tax Relief

You can use the comments to add more relief links below.