VIDEO: Cannabis industry flocks to New York for the Cannabis World Congress and Expo

On Wednesday, the cannabis industry descended upon New York City for one of the most anticipated events of the year, the 6th Annual Cannabis World Congress & Business Exposition. A cornucopia of cannabis industry titans, the event is one of the largest of its kind, bringing together giants from the space such as Canopy Growth Corporation (CGC) and Harvest Health & Recreation (HRVSF), along with more controversial names like MedMen (MMEN) and Medical Marijuana, Inc. (MJNA).

Held at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center, attendees flocked to the event’s first day to hear a keynote speech from Harvest CEO Steve White and industry updates from Cowen Managing Director Vivien Azer.

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Meanwhile, attendees flocked to the showroom floor where hundreds of budding entrepreneurs and a select few advocacy groups displayed the latest in both products and ideas. With a potential $80 billion on the table over the next decade, attendees were eager to carve out their share.

Still, the event comes as the cannabis industry finds itself at a crossroads. What was a barrelling push towards legalization has slowed to a bit of a crawl, with recent legislative efforts in New Jersey and New York having lost momentum. And attendees were eager to learn the results of the upcoming FDA hearings on CBD, as a highly-unregulated industry could find itself upended.

PotNetwork News spoke with Geg Marco, President of Leading Edge Expositions which is the organization responsible for putting together the expo each year. Marco discussed the growth of the event, talked about some of the highlights that attendees could expect this year, and spoke in general about booming nature of the cannabis industry in general.

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“The first year we did it we had 20 booths, 20 10x10 booths,” Marco told PotNetwork News. “Now we have 176 companies with thousands upon thousands of square feet of exhibit space.”

The CWCBExpo continues through Saturday, with a number of attendees excited about the upcoming address by Canopy Growth CEO Bruce Linton on Friday.

(Header Image by Juan Carlos Tamayo)