Mississippi Cannabis Operators — Rootdown, Southern Sky, Magnolia, Hybrid Relief

Last verified: May 2026

Rootdown Mississippi — The 24+ Location Statewide Chain

Rootdown Mississippi is the largest multi-store retailer in the program, with at least 24 locations across the state. Documented Rootdown locations include:

• North Mississippi: Corinth, Olive Branch, Senatobia, Oxford, Tupelo, Grenada, Greenville.
• Central Mississippi: two Jackson stores, Byram, Canton, Richland.
• South Mississippi: Hattiesburg, Laurel, McComb.
• Gulf Coast: Bay St. Louis, Biloxi, Gautier, Ocean Springs, Pascagoula.

The Rootdown footprint is the closest thing Mississippi has to a single-brand statewide dispensary chain. The chain’s spread across both opt-in metro areas and small towns serves as the de facto statewide reference for retail availability.

Southern Sky Brands — The Vertically-Integrated Mississippi Original

Southern Sky Brands (Canton, Madison County) is one of the most prominent vertically-integrated Mississippi-owned operators. Founded in 2021, the company runs a 70,000-square-foot indoor cultivation facility in Canton. Key personnel include:

• Steve Merritt — Chief Operating Officer.
• Morgan Engle — Director of Technology and Marketing.

Southern Sky also operates the Southern Sky Wellness dispensary chain in Vicksburg, Bay St. Louis, Jackson, Gulfport, Starkville, Tupelo, and beyond. The company is the licensed Mississippi producer of Tyson 2.0 (Mike Tyson’s cannabis brand) and Ric Flair Drip — a reflection of how much the still-young market leans on cultural leverage to compete with stigma.

Magnolia Greens — Brookhaven Physician-Owned

Magnolia Greens (Brookhaven, Lincoln County) is a physician-owned dispensary led by Dr. Dennis Sanders. The Brookhaven location operates near the historic Cannabis Company first-sale site, in a town that became one of the state’s earliest dispensary anchors.

Magnolia Cannabis — Multi-Location Operator

Magnolia Cannabis operates multiple locations across Mississippi, including in Oxford and Brandon. Different from Magnolia Greens (the Brookhaven physician-owned operation), Magnolia Cannabis is a separate brand operating its own footprint.

Green Magnolia Dispensaries

Green Magnolia Dispensaries is co-owned by Jeff Webb, who serves as chairman of the Mississippi Medical Cannabis Advisory Board. The Advisory Board is the regulatory advisory body to MSDH on program rules; Webb’s simultaneous role as a licensee and board chair has been the subject of governance discussion in Mississippi cannabis circles.

Hybrid Relief and Starbuds — Oxford’s First Two

Hybrid Relief and Starbuds in Oxford were two of the first three Mississippi dispensaries to open on January 25, 2023. Both serve the Lafayette County / Ole Miss / NCNPR research-corridor patient population.

The Cannabis Company — Brookhaven’s Original

The Cannabis Company in Brookhaven (Lincoln County) was the first Mississippi dispensary to open and remains a popular Lincoln County outlet. Brookhaven, ~30 miles south of Jackson on I-55, is a small but historically important town for the program.

River Remedy

River Remedy is one of several smaller multi-location operators serving the Delta and central Mississippi. It is one of the established mid-tier operators in a marketplace that’s consolidating around the larger Rootdown / Southern Sky / Magnolia chains.

Pause Pain & Wellness — Practitioner Network

Pause Pain & Wellness is not a dispensary brand but a statewide medical-cannabis-certifying practitioner network with locations in Hattiesburg, Jackson, Tupelo, and the Gulf Coast. Pause is significant because it addresses the rural-county practitioner gap (35 of 82 counties had no certified practitioner as of late 2025) by operating multiple locations close to opted-in dispensary clusters.

Ownership Concentration Limits

SB 2095 imposes strict ownership concentration limits: no individual or business may own more than 10% of more than one cultivation license, one processing license, or four dispensaries. This is designed to prevent the kind of MSO (multi-state operator) consolidation that has occurred in some other state markets, where 5–10 large operators dominate retail. In Mississippi, the consequence is more independent operators, smaller per-operator footprints, and limited economies of scale.

The 2025 Consolidation Trend

Industry license participation dropped 3.5% in 2025. New licenses still come online at 2–3 per month, but smaller, single-store operators are exiting. The operators most likely to survive consolidation are:

• Multi-store retailers with statewide brand recognition (Rootdown).
• Vertically-integrated cultivator-retailers (Southern Sky).
• Physician-owned or clinically-positioned operators (Magnolia Greens).
• College-town operators with stable patient bases (Hybrid Relief, Starbuds in Oxford).

Federal Rescheduling Tailwind

If President Trump’s December 2025 EO 14370 directing rescheduling to Schedule III completes, the IRC § 280E tax burden lifts — potentially restoring 20–30% of cash flow to most cannabis operators. Mississippi industry leaders, including the MMMA’s Crisler, have expressed cautious optimism. See economic impact page.