| On Tuesday this week, Cannabis Business Times hosted a webinar on the complicated question of how to navigate the California market. Jocelyn Sheltraw, director of industry relations for Headset, moderated the panel discussion, which built off a feature we ran earlier in the year. Back in late winter 2022, Sheltraw said that the biggest hurdles for California’s licensed cannabis businesses are: an imbalance between supply and demand,wholesale price compression,a declining market share for flower,high taxes and a still-thriving illicit market.“It’s just a recipe for disaster,” Sheltraw told us. “It’s just created turmoil on the cultivation side.” Even though the state eliminated its cultivation tax this summer, it doesn’t seem like operating a functional cultivation business is getting any easier. On the webinar Tuesday, Sheltraw brought some numbers to the ongoing debate over supply and demand. Is California facing an oversupply? Is the market running out of steam? Not so much: The problem lies more in a bottleneck forming at the point of sale. California has a population of nearly 40 million people, and with 971 retail storefronts (as of May 2022), that is roughly one store for every 40,000 residents. The kicker is that 68% of California municipalities have enacted some sort of cannabis business ban. Swami Chaitanya, of Mendocino County cultivation business Swami Select, pointed out in the webinar that distribution—from northern California cannabis farms to southern California dispensaries, for instance—has been exceptionally difficult to navigate in the past several years. For anyone staring down Croptober this year, that’s trouble. Stay tuned for the on-demand webinar, which you can watch over at cannabisbusinesstimes.com. -Eric Sandy, Digital Editor | 