The Weed game.

Women are owning the Marijuana Market: 

The recent and interesting phenomena that has transpired here in the West (both globally and nationally) has been majority female owned Cannabis businesses.  As has come to so often be the case in an historical sense: women will likely once again be the savor of humanity.  There is a dramatic trend in females owning, operating and doing the majority of manufacturing and packaging for the legal cannabis trade.  I feel this is due, at least in large part, to the substantial amount of men previously running the illegal trade, where a significant percentage of those are now restricted from taking part in the legal version of the trade due primarily to previous legal infractions.  As most if not all of the states involved have significant laws regarding such peoples as the industry has become more officially regulated and curtailed by reams of arguably useless and constitutionally questionable bureaucracy.   While the vast amount of Bud tender's and labor's are generally still comprised of mixed company, the majority of ownership and the "preferred tenders" are primarily female when it comes to gender.

This could very well be an observation born out of bias(though there is a large grouping of textual support), proximity and a lack of other highly technical forms of data, as this is being based primarily on personal observations and (normally stoned) perusal of industry literature; though, it must be said --as the industry is still fairly small, the amount of women in comparison to other such fields is fairly staggering.  This could indeed be a significant inroad for female CEO's and other technically proficient women to develop a great deal of wealth particularly considering the few amount of actual seats available at the proverbial table.

Not that anything I am saying or wishing for has not been done previously and said far better.  What I think it is important we do is lift up other benighted communities in similar ways.  There are surely organic type initiatives like this happening in other sectors as well (see bellow) though if something then becomes a "best practice" things that are just done, then I would imagine the opposition, fiscal restrictions and legislative support would be adjusted to fit the ever evolving situation far more quickly.

Though this is certainly also a case of law being (again) far behind the cultural shifts along with the technology.  And to a certain extent this must be wholly troubling to the powers that be that have, for so long, made it their mission to be against pot.  Though one by one we are seeing a shift in the dynamic --no doubt due to mounting financial and social pressure from long atrophied infrastructure, policy and legislation. 

As one of the article's bellow mentions, "activism loves women".  The very vibe women give off will likely help the cause, particularly with conservatives.  While there is a likelihood that this would not be equated also to Black and Latino women this is just a reminder of how far we have to go, if some of us would have expected to be there by now.

From an economic perspective this may be a good opportunity for a great number of workers to start a career in a "low stress" field.  By definition, "Weed Shops" are a fairly low stress, low impact environment.  There are few rules other then those imposed by law, but one of them is certainly directly connected to keeping the stress, noise and complaints down to a minimum.   And although there is always the well placed drama or complex story that takes headlines, far-and-away, recreational marijuana establishments are by far the most relaxing place you will likely visit throughout the day.

Though the fact that a cannabis business and any other business, lounge or combined intoxicants are normally a heavily restricted area, there are several in legal states which have found interesting ways to combine multiple amenities, creating a type of tourist attraction (which for some reason the state is bound on restricting).  There seems to be particular legal concern over people smoking together, when such is done outside a private residence.   Right, the last thing we want is substantial groups of people getting along, how tragic.

At-any-rate, with the right amount of community and political support in place, this market will hopefully grow and provide many women with the opportunity to break into and essentially create a large and likely sizable section of the world economy.  And I really do not see that as overstating the point, as fond as I am for sarcasm and other such pleasures.  The high levels of conscientiousness and social agreeableness of women, along with the "natural teacher" aspects of many women's personalities will likely make them far more successful against the more aggressive and obtuse men they will be competing with.  Overall I think we can also look for this to be evident of a substantial change in business altogether --if there is a significant amount of companies being nice, communicating and putting customers first; along with making growing profits and developing highly organized and dynamic systems, the likelihood for substantial and sustained competition between the modern and more antiquated businesses seem nearly certain.  Though I have been critical of some female executives in the past, the majority of women business leaders I know or have looked into have done far better than their male counter parts, nationally and internationally.  Unfortunately this is not true in each and every country, there are a significant amount that are still living in something which could most rightly be considered the dark ages, in comparison to the modern West.

For all the problems and political turmoil alive and well in the West, there is a significant amount to be both thankful for and programs, projects, cities, people and business leaders to heap praise upon --legislation initiatives to get excited for and populations to support in their ever progressing fight for equality and social equity.  For all the faults of the West, it must be admitted that there has been a significant reduction in overall deaths, from war, famine or otherwise; there has been a burgeoning of social justice crusades that have made exponential progress over their decades old counterparts --while there has still be a significant amount of the population suffering; whether from poverty or the prison industrial complex, guns or drugs, or whether it be some other eventuality perpetuated by the substantial differential in wealth in the country --in any of the numerous ways that manifests-- by-and-large there are far less horrors and violations of rights than in previous generations; with any hope: ending of the drug war will be an addition to the continuum.

Related Articles

- "Weed Could be first... industry NOT dominated by men."-- (March 2015). newsweek.com/2015/08/28/women-weed-how-legal-marijuana-could-be-first-billion-dollar-industry-not-364249.html 

- "Reasons Why Weed and Women Go Together" -- (October 2016) --potent.media/reasons-why-weed-and-women-go-together 

- "Women in Weed..." -- (March 2018). Westword.com/marijuana/women-in-weed-documentary-shows-how-women-can-thrive-in-legal-industry-10057196