The cannabis media industry is experiencing a structural reset unlike anything seen since the early days of legalization. Within the span of eighteen months, the three most recognized names in cannabis publishing have either collapsed, been delisted, or fundamentally transformed — and almost nobody is talking about what this means for the industry’s information ecosystem.
The Fall of the Old Guard
Leafly, once the undisputed consumer gateway to cannabis, was delisted from Nasdaq in January 2025 after its market capitalization fell below exchange minimums. The company that pioneered the strain database and built a brand synonymous with cannabis discovery saw its stock price erode to penny-stock levels while hemorrhaging revenue quarter after quarter.
High Times, the 50-year-old magazine that defined cannabis counterculture, filed for bankruptcy in 2024 after accumulating over $20 million in debt under its previous ownership group. The brand and intellectual property were ultimately acquired for $3.5 million — a fraction of the hundreds of millions its previous owners had envisioned.
The Cannabist, the Denver Post’s pioneering cannabis news vertical that represented the first time a major American newspaper took the industry seriously, was shuttered years ago and never replaced.
What Fills the Vacuum
The question isn’t whether new cannabis media will emerge — it’s what form it will take. The old model of display-ad-supported news sites with commodity content has proven unsustainable. What the market is demanding, based on where attention and engagement are actually flowing, is something fundamentally different: community-driven platforms that combine utility, data, and social engagement in ways that no existing cannabis site has attempted.
The cannabis consumer of 2026 is not the cannabis consumer of 2016. They don’t need to be told that cannabis is becoming mainstream — they know it. What they need is sophisticated information infrastructure: reliable product data, independent reviews they can trust, market intelligence, and a community of peers who approach cannabis with the same informed enthusiasm that craft beer drinkers bring to their hobby.
The Economic Case
Cannabis brands currently spend 75-80% less on marketing as a percentage of revenue compared to traditional consumer packaged goods companies. This gap is closing rapidly as the industry matures and competition intensifies. Meanwhile, the major digital advertising platforms — Google, Meta, and most programmatic networks — still restrict cannabis advertising, creating a structural premium for publishers who can deliver engaged cannabis audiences.
This isn’t a theoretical opportunity. It’s a market reality that makes cannabis media one of the most attractive niches in digital publishing for operators who understand both the industry and modern audience-building techniques.
The platform that captures this moment won’t look like High Times, Leafly, or any other cannabis property that came before it. It will look like something entirely new.