The Higher Origins California Cannabis License Search is a tool that allows you to look up any Cannabis license, current or expired, in California.
How to search:
Enter your query in the search bar and press [Search].
You can search by the exact license number to find an individual license
Searching by business name will return all licenses associated with that business name.
Search will also fuzzy match in the background based on things like owner name and contact info. We don't publish these for privacy, but if you search for Farm A, and Farm B happens to have the same owner, Farm B would pop up in the search results even if it won't tell you the owners name. This is useful for figuring out if two businesses are related even if they aren't publicly making it clear.
Use the dropdowns under the search bar to sort by most recently updated results, or select how many results to display.
The information we display:
We display the following information about a licensee:
License Number
Business Name
Whether the license is active or not
DBA Legal Name (Doing-Business-As name, the legal alias of the business)
Whether they hold an adult use (recreational) or medical license
What kind of license it is
What county it's based in
The last day we updated the records for the search tool
An attribution that this information came from the California DCC
This information is displayed both in a readable formatted paragraph and in a column list on the right.
Glossary:
If you are unsure what any of the license types or terminology means, please refer to our glossary page, which can be reached via the [Glossary] button on the license search page or any search result page.
FAQ's
Why did you make this page?
The DCC has a license search page here but it is inconvenient for quick lookup and only provides data in table format, which is hard to search quickly and easily. While that's fine for nerds (like us) who are fine with downloading big spreadsheets and querying them, we thought we would make this more accessible version for everyone who just wants to know more about the license number they see on the sticker of their 8th jar.
Do you own this data?
Nope. This is all public data, it's owned by all California taxpayers, which is why this search is free. We don't control it, we just present it to you in a better format.
My license information is on here and I don't like it, will you remove it?
Absolutely not. This is public data that anyone is allowed to share, if you are uncomfortable with people finding out basic information about your business then it's time to question your business ethics or strengthen your security measures. In fact, our search shows LESS personal information than the State's search tool. You're welcome.
Is this data accurate?
As accurate as the State's ability to record and report it. Since the DCC is notably unwilling to answer questions about it's data gathering and management methods, even through Public Records Act requests, we can only show you what they release, and hope that they did their due diligence in reporting.
I'm searching for a license because I have a complaint about their conduct, the safety of their product, or something else that I think they've done wrong, can you help?
The best option is to report them to the State here. Since the State can be slow to respond and may not consider your issue worthy of action, we also recommend contacting them directly to see if they can fix it, holding them accountable on social media, or contacting more local business authorities who may have influence. Also, please don't report cannabis businesses just because they exist and you don't like cannabis. They have enough to deal with without harassment, please consider that they employ your fellow citizens and are a part of your community like anyone else- be nice.
Wow this is neat, thanks, can I pay you for this?
We're not asking you to, but if you really want to, support us here. (we love you)