Forbes 2025 Cannabis 42.0 List

Every 420, the high holiday for marijuana lovers, is a reason to examine the state of the $32 billion cannabis industry. Pot may still be illegal at the federal level, but 39 states have some form of legal weed— Nebraska legalized medical marijuana on Election Day—and the majority of Americans currently support legalization, no matter their political leanings.

This week, Rep. David Joyce, a pro-pot Republican from Ohio, reintroduced the STATES Act, which, if passed, would de-schedule state-legal marijuana and create a federal framework for cannabis products.

For now, legal cannabis companies struggle under federal prohibition, with punitive taxes and a lack of interstate commerce. (Meanwhile, the federally legal hemp market, which sells THC-infused products online, in grocery stores and smoke shops around the country and the illicit market has been undeterred by state legalization.) And the hope that the Drug Enforcement Administration would reclassify marijuana as a less dangerous drug—it is currently in Schedule I, the same category as heroin and LSD—has been dashed. Again. The DEA stalled that process late last year. That said, there are plenty of companies that have found a way to keep afloat in a punishing market.

For the fourth-annual Cannabis 42.0 list, Forbes is celebrating the entrepreneurs, innovators and disruptors who are finding success the state-regulated cannabis market. Over the last few months, Forbes interviewed dozens of investors, executives, analysts and business owners, studied sales data and financial documents and reviewed nearly 200 applicants to identify the 42 leaders and up-and-comers who are transforming cannabis from a criminal enterprise into a robust legal industry. Publicly traded companies were not considered in order to highlight smaller, entrepreneurial brands and people revolutionizing the industry from the ground up.

Here are the pot pioneers blazing a path forward in 2025.