Women have been active in the cannabis industry, cannabis legalization, cannabis testing, and cannabis rights since the earliest days of commercialization, but they have also faced gendered obstacles impeding their growth in an industry worth over 12 million dollars since 2019. "The American cannabis industry accounted for $10 billion of 2018’s [global] figures, with the average U.S. dispensary pulling in $3 million a year." [1]
Women took the helm in new businesses and markets as recreational cannabis was legalized particularly in four states—Alaska, Colorado, Oregon and Washington—from 2012 to 2014. [2] [3] Female executives and business owners in the budding market contribute to one of the biggest cash crop industries in the US as of 2022. [4] [5] In 2015, one report found that women were 36% of cannabis executives, which was an outstanding figure for a new industry. Four years later, one report indicated that just 17% of executives were women. Although women-owned cannabis businesses were reportedly making about three times as much as male-led businesses, raising capital tended to favor the latter. Gender bias has been a significant factor in policy decisions and organizational success due to anecdotal research showing an increase in women's influence on the cannabis market. [1] [6]
Consumers of cannabis are increasing in Massachusetts, for instance, yet only 4.7% of cannabis businesses are owned by women in the state of Massachusetts compared to 19.3% of businesses in other industries. [7]
According to some sources, the cannabis industry is a particularly woman-friendly environment and has a higher percentage of women than many other industries for several reasons. Cited reasons include its founding by "liberally minded rebels" less bound by gender conformity; and its being relatively new and "unhampered by established business networks" closed to women, and the lack of glass ceilings in some parts of the industry, especially "support" activities such as finance and investment, marketing, delivery, and agronomy research. Women comprised over 60% of executives in cannabis product testing laboratories in 2015, the highest rate of women executives in the cannabis industry. [8] [9] According to data analysis expert Giadha DeCarcer, "The cannabis industry is so new that there are very few barriers to get in, especially for women [entrepreneurs]". [10]
Several women have played pioneering roles in analytical chemistry and microbiology labs focused on cannabis and hemp product testing and consumer safety. [11] Given the fast-pace of the commercial recreational marijuana sector since 2012, testing cannabis crops was not well regulated by any governmental entity.
Rowshan Reordan, a licensed attorney in the state of Oregon since 2006, [12] was among the early innovators in the sector. In 2011, Reordan opened Oregon's Green Leaf Lab LLC, the first accredited, woman-owned, and nearly all-women run cannabis and hemp analytical testing laboratory in the United States. [13] [14] [15] [16] After questioning whether a close friend, who later lost a battle with HIV, had access to clean, tested cannabis, the founder and CEO went on to open a second accredited cannabis and hemp analytical laboratories in California. [17] Green Leaf Lab trademarked their "Cannalysis" process of analytic cannabis testing that employed trained chemists using standardized and peer reviewed analytic testing equipment. [18]
In 2019, Green Leaf Lab filed a complaint ending in a legal battle that became part of a critical issues around the need to protect proprietary lab procedures and issues of transparency around the emergent cannabis industry's regulatory standards in analytical chemical testing of cannabis potency. [19] [20] [21] Accusations of improriety were dismissed in U.S. California Central District Court. (see thumbnail for Order to Dismiss with Prejudice).
In 2013, she had joined a subcommittee on testing medical marijuana for Oregon's House Bill 3460. [22] [23] Green Leaf Lab was a strong advocate for safe testing of medical and recreational cannabis in the U.S. [24] [25] In 2015. Reordan gave a statement before the Oregon Legislature outlining eight product safety and public health recommendations to better regulate the cannabis industry:
Another leader, Larisa Bolivar, has been a changemaker and advocate for consumer rights in cannabis. For two decades, she has been an advocate for social equity and justice as the executive director of the Cannabis Consumer Coalition whose activism has brought attention to patient and caregiver rights since the shift from legalizing medical marijuana to the rise of recreational marijuana. In a 2022 interview Bolivar was lauded for discovering the "first list of offending" growers in Colorado after "health officials started flagging commercial weed for dangerous pesticides in 2015." [28] In the same interview, she called attention to gender inequities that appear to be linked to "wealthy white men" crowding out emergent markets with little concern for clean cannabis and hemp. "We still have a lot of messes to clean in Colorado cannabis and hemp," she said, "and right now social equity is a big one." [28]
Other early women advocates of clean cannabis and analytical testing have included Dr. Michelle Sexton, a naturopathic doctor and clinician specializing in botanical medicine and cannabinoid pharmacology as Chief Officer of Phytalab in Washington State, [11] [29] Bethany Sherman, owner of Eugene, Oregon's OG Analytical cannabis lab (forced out of her position due to racist behavior in 2017), [30] and Camille Holiday. [31]
Sexton was a former research scientist at Bastyr University who later worked at the Center for Cannabis and Social Policy, a 501(c)(3) non-profit public charity founded in 2013. The Center is an advocate for a drug war-free world where "social control rather than public safety" is the priority. Sexton was the editor and technical advisor for the state of Washington's official guide for cannabis quality control. Discussing the obstacles in scientific marijuana research, Sexton's personal view was that obtaining funding was a far more significant barrier than gender discrimination for women in the field. [11]
While women have been able to get in on the ground floor as scientists and owners of testing labs despite hostilities towards woman, gender inequalities in obtaining funding is also an issue leading to supportive affinity groups such as the for-profit networking group Women Grow in Denver, Colorado founded in 2014 by Jane West. Women Grow welcomes "canna-curious" to cannabis professional women, as well as men. [32]
Women continue to play important roles in scientists, attorneys, business leaders, rights advocates, creatives in cooking, filmmaking, and writing, in governance, and in journalism.
The first legally-owned African American dispensary in the U.S. opened in 2023, decades after the recreational market began. Pioneer Wanda James is its owner, using her presence in the industry to challenge social justice issues alongside dispensing her products. [33] Boston also has a new Black-owned operator offering advice to millennials. [34]
African Americans were disproportionately targeted and imprisoned for marijuana use when it was part of the War on Drugs campaign under the Nixon Administration in the 1970s. Blacks and hippies were targeted by the administration in dog whistle politics of racism and the undoing of left-leaning social movements of the 1950s and 60s.
On June 17, 1971, then-President Richard Nixon declared a war on drugs, an announcement sparking a new offensive in drug policing. It’s something then-White House counsel John Ehrlichman would later admit in an interview was a political ploy against two of Nixon’s enemies: Blacks and the antiwar left, thus exposing their use of heroin and marijuana, respectively. [35]
The racial disparity around arrests and criminalization continues throughout diverse communities, for example, among Filipinos in San Francisco. [36] The ACLU continues to call for social reform around this form of injustice. [37] Women of color, for example African American women, have been leaders in cannabis dispensaries, particularly in the Deep South, where the inequities of Jim Crow and generational trauma that continues to prevent the accumulation of wealth in communities of color.
[C]annabis has been increasingly profitable for white people, while people of color continue to be targeted by the drug war. Twelve of the nation’s top multistate operators were valued between $59 million and $4 billion in 2019. Most of these enterprises — nearly 81 percent, according to a 2017 survey by Marijuana Business Daily — are owned by white people, mostly white men. [38]
Following the opening of a medical-marijuana business in 2019, Washington, D.C. attorney Sherri Blount (pronounced “blunt”) with her sister and other women as partners, began investing in black-owned multistate operations during the COVID-19 pandemic. Their company Blounts & Moore, LLC was the first in the country. [38]
During the COVID-19 pandemic, when so many small businesses were lost, a disproportionate number were owned and operated by women of color, according to the National Bureau of Economic Research. [39] Women view the work they do in the cannabis sector as a form of activism. They are "trying to close this gap... staking their claim in the same game that’s been used to criminalize their communities for decades." [40] [41] [42]
With the legalization of "weed" or other marijuana or cannabis products, women of color including Latina or Latinx women and Indigenous women can build their own wealth while helping their communities recover from structural violence. [43] [44] [45]
Representation among operators in the industry matters yet even the presence of women of color has been exploited by white operators, as reported in a 2020 report in the L.A.Times. [46]
Below is a list of women in the industry since as early as 2012. The U.S. Cannabis has a long legal history in the U.S. from criminalization to liberalization given the emerging markets of legalizing medicinal and recreational use of cannabis and women have and continue to play a significant role in its emergence. Issues relating to gender bias or sexism as well as gender equality and inclusion are factors in the emerging sectors of the industry, particularly in Colorado, California, and Oregon.
Cannabis in Oregon is legal for both medical and recreational use. In recent decades, the U.S. state of Oregon has had a number of legislative, legal, and cultural events surrounding use of cannabis. Oregon was the first state to decriminalize the possession of small amounts of cannabis, and among the first to authorize its use for medical purposes. An attempt to recriminalize possession of small amounts of cannabis was turned down by Oregon voters in 1997.
Cannabis in California has been legal for medical use since 1996, and for recreational use since late 2016. The state of California has been at the forefront of efforts to liberalize cannabis laws in the United States, beginning in 1972 with the nation's first ballot initiative attempting to legalize cannabis. Although it was unsuccessful, California would later become the first state to legalize medical cannabis through the Compassionate Use Act of 1996, which passed with 56% voter approval. In November 2016, California voters approved the Adult Use of Marijuana Act with 57% of the vote, which legalized the recreational use of cannabis.
Cannabis in Massachusetts is legal for medical and recreational use. It also relates to the legal and cultural events surrounding the use of cannabis. A century after becoming the first U.S. state to criminalize recreational cannabis, Massachusetts voters elected to legalize it in 2016.
"Weed the People", officially "Weed the People: A Cannabis Legalization Celebration", was an event held in Portland on July 3, 2015, two days after recreational marijuana became legal in the U.S. state of Oregon. Sponsored by the Portland Mercury and two cannabis companies, the event was attended by an estimated 1,500–2,000 people, who were provided up to seven grams of marijuana for immediate consumption or to take home. Organizers complied with restrictions on recreational sales by distributing free cannabis and required attendees to pay an entry fee. More than 1,300 tickets were sold, but the building's 500-person capacity meant long wait times to enter. Media outlets reported on the historic nature of the event, which was described as a "stoner's paradise" and a celebration of freedom.
Cannabis tourism in the United States is a form of drug tourism that exists in recreationally legal cannabis states. As of May 2023, 23 states, Washington, D.C., and Guam have legalized recreational cannabis.
Cannabis dispensaries in the United States or marijuana dispensaries are a type of cannabis retail outlet, local government-regulated physical location, typically inside a retail storefront or office building, in which a person can purchase cannabis and cannabis-related items for medical or recreational use.
Cannabis in Nevada became legal for recreational use on January 1, 2017, following the passage of Question 2 on the 2016 ballot with 54% of the vote. The first licensed sales of recreational cannabis began on July 1, 2017.
Cannabis in Missouri is legal for recreational use. A ballot initiative to legalize recreational use, Amendment 3, passed by a 53–47 margin on November 8, 2022. Possession for adults 21 and over became legal on December 8, 2022, with the first licensed sales occurring on February 3, 2023.
Cannabis in New York has been legal for medical purposes under New York law since 2016, and recreational purposes since 2021. As of 2022, recreational cannabis is for sale legally in the state, only through state-approved dispensaries.
Cannabis in New Jersey is legal for both medical use and recreational use. An amendment to the state constitution legalizing cannabis became effective on January 1, 2021, and enabling legislation and related bills were signed into law by governor Phil Murphy on February 22, 2021.
Cannabis in Washington relates to a number of legislative, legal, and cultural events surrounding the use of cannabis. On December 6, 2012, Washington became the first U.S. state to legalize recreational use of marijuana and the first to allow recreational marijuana sales, alongside Colorado. The state had previously legalized medical marijuana in 1998. Under state law, cannabis is legal for medical purposes and for any purpose by adults over 21.
In Thailand, cannabis, known by the name Ganja has recently had new laws passed through. Cannabis that has less than 0.2% THC, referred to as industrial hemp in USA, was legalised on 9 June 2022. Medicinal cannabis, with no THC restrictions, was made legal in 2018 but required patients to obtain a prescription from a medical practitioner. Recreational cannabis is still illegal according to Thai law.
The cannabis industry is composed of legal cultivators and producers, consumers, independent industrial standards bodies, ancillary products and services, regulators and researchers concerning cannabis and its industrial derivative, hemp. The cannabis industry has been inhibited by regulatory restrictions for most of recent history, but the legal market has emerged rapidly as more governments legalize medical and adult use. Uruguay became the first country to legalize recreational marijuana through legislation in December, 2013. Canada became the first country to legalize private sales of recreational marijuana with Bill C-45 in 2018.
Cannabis product testing is a form of product testing analyzes the quality of cannabis extracts, edibles, and THC and CBD levels in an emergent consumer market eager to sell adult use products. Analytical chemistry and microbiology laboratories are important entities in consumer protection. These labs not only determine the condition and viability of cannabinoids, water content, heavy metals, pesticides, terpenes, yeast, but also the presence of mold, mycotoxins, and solvents. These laboratories emerged when advocates of cannabis testing raised concerns about potential contaminants.
A budtender is a title of a staff member who works within a dispensary or store where medical or recreational cannabis is sold. Their job is to offer suggestions to customers, answer questions, handle products and showcase products being sold.
Cresco Labs, Inc. is a publicly traded, vertically integrated cannabis and medical marijuana company based in Chicago, Illinois, with current retail operations in nine states where marijuana has been legalized for medical use. The company's stock trades on the Canadian Securities Exchange under the ticker symbol CL, and in over-the-counter markets in the United States with the ticker symbol CRLBF.
The Green Rush (2012–present) is an ongoing global economic event that began on December 6, 2012, when cannabis was legalized in the US state of Washington; Colorado's legalization took effect four days later. While still illegal federally in the United States, the actions of these two state governments signaled the opening of a market projected to be worth US$48+ billion globally by 2027. As of 2019 the cannabis industry had created over 250,000 jobs. However, cannabis companies have been a mixed investment success, with many experiencing plunging stock prices, massive layoffs, and failure to meet investor expectations.
The COVID-19 pandemic had a significant impact on the cannabis industry. Investor's Business Daily said the industry was affected as "customers stock up on prescriptions and recreational customers load up on something to make the lockdown a little more mellow or a little less boring".
Rowshan Reordan is the founder and CEO of Green Leaf Lab LLC. Founded in 2011, as the first accredited, woman-owned cannabis and hemp CBD analytical testing laboratory in the United States certified by the Women Business Enterprise National Council (WBENC) and AOAC International.