Why Did We Choose the Harder Way to Size This Market?
We counted the market instead of extrapolating it, and everything that makes the report distinctive follows from that one choice.
When Do Counting and Extrapolation Converge or Diverge?
Extrapolation asks what last year would become if the trend held. Counting asks what is on the ground, right now, in front of you. In a stable market the two answers converge, and the cheaper method wins on efficiency. In a market that boomed, cracked and consolidated inside three years, the two answers pull sharply apart, and only one of them is real.
Why Should the Sizing Method Match the Stakes?
We chose the harder method because the decisions that rest on it are large. When someone is sizing an entry worth millions, an elegant guess is not good enough. They need a number they can stand on, and a clear account of how strong that footing is.
That is the discipline the report is built to deliver.
Because the decisions that rest on it are large. An elegant guess is not good enough when someone is sizing an entry worth millions.
In a stable market, the two answers converge and the cheaper method wins on efficiency. In a market that boomed, cracked, and consolidated inside three years, they pull sharply apart.
Because a number someone can stand on, with a clear account of how strong that footing is, is what a large decision actually requires.
A number built from counting rather than extrapolating, matched to the size of the decisions that rest on it.
This post gives you the argument. The full method, the figures, and the confidence ratings behind them are in the report. Read a free sample chapter, then decide.
Read the free sample →Three findings from the 2026 edition, free.
Of 8,636 expired dispensary licences, 1,339 renewed. The rest did not bother. That is not a market collapsing. That is a market taking out its own trash.
CertainFewer shops, higher revenue each. The closures removed storefronts, not revenue, because the shops that closed were earning almost nothing. Every desk model read the count and stopped.
LikelyA small minority of shops earn a disproportionate share of all revenue. The bottom half earns a fraction of it. Nobody else has measured this.
LikelyBuilt from 850+ dispensary visits across Thailand, 100+ dispensary owner and operator interviews, 30+ farm owner and operator interviews, and 400+ customer interviews across 40 nationalities. 101 pages. 23 chapters. Every chapter sourced, every figure confidence-tagged.