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

Restructuring the way we look at computer service

The fact is, computer service as we knew it at one time is dead.  The conditions and the environment has changed, and unless you have a ton of enterprise clients that are supporting the majority of your business costs, it is hard to make a living at it.  If you are a freelance IT person it is likely you are working for temp service/s, finding work on BBS sites, poor, in debt, or all four.

Some Mom and Pop stores have been able to stay open based on a fairly large amount of repeat business, but usually if you fix the machine right, it will be a long time before you see them again.  There just aren't that many people that have complicated and dire enough problems that they would need to pay one to take care of things.  Not enough to be counted on as a steady income at-least.

Generally speaking, you can buy a computer and just keep adding things to it until it becomes too full or too broken, and then go buy a new one.   It used to be that one needed help to build a computer and install stuff on it.  For the most part today, most people that need powerful machines either buy them from Amazon or similar, or they build them on their own.  With Google and YouTube there is not much the person of average intelligence couldn't setup or do on a computer or related; reasonably.

So, things being as they are, what do you need the IT guy for.  He now has to go get a job at a company that can support thousands of users and get paid a lot less than he would have 20 years ago by opening up his/her own store.

This is not to say that people that specialize in technology aren't useful, skilled, or necessary.  Or that one couldn't open up a shop and do well, just that it isn't as easy as it once was, the specifics have changed.  The market has become smaller, many people are too poor, and still more just are not going to see enough value to pay for help.   In the enterprise and small business space there is a lot of noise and it is very crowded.  It is not enough to simply design web-sites, build computers, or install operating systems anymore.

If people were able to work on their own cars, without ensuring a catastrophe or death, they would do that at the same frequency.  This is a bit harder and generally more expensive then it once was when a tuneup solved most problems, this is also changing fast.  Perhaps at some point, with 3D printing and similar technologies, we will see the death of the auto dealer and other similar consumer sale companies.  If you can just purchase a variety of raw materials and actually produce the product on your own, inexpensively, and consistently most people will likely choose that option.


As technology moves forward it is obviously going to adversely affect some industries.   What is important is how we respond to these challenges.

Change is part of any successful system and must be dealt with; the sooner the better.

One way that the tech industry has continued to evolve is through the creation of the tech consultant.  In an effort to save the mid-level skill and experience positions, by the professionals themselves.  Similar to the way radio and entertainment personalities have transferred to the pod-casting platform as radio stations, newspapers and other forms of traditional media have been eroding.

This has been a great start, but we shouldn't see this as the limit to the transition, rather a stepping stone to the next step.

In order to employ people you need to be in a position to fix a problem.  This is not to say that you should build in externalities that force the problem to continually replicate it's self.   There still needs to be a concerted effort to clearly estimate market-size, demand, and possible scaling issues.  It is impossible to plan for every eventuality, but we can try.

You can not force a particular technology to stay relevant.  So you need to be far more diverse than one was once forced to be.  This is no easy task and shouldn't be seen as something that is just going to be apparent from an initial survey.  

This is a good position for the nerd to be in, since they are in their element.   For the average Joe, this may prove to be a challenge, but then again they probably should choose their career path according to their skills and interests.

In order to transition to new areas of technology you have to be flexible -- not in the dirty way, thought that may help in certain circles -- and find joy in the technical details of a project, though you may not be passionate about the content.  This is true in everything, but based on the amount of time you tend to spend with the content in tech, it is especially important to identify things you may not be able to stay focused on or work with creatively.

This is basically a verbose way of saying that you shouldn't necessarily limit yourself based on your dogma, experiences, or interests.  Some of us tend to do this as an almost defensive response.

Also, it is important to stay apprised of what is happening in industries that you may be abstractly connected to.  For instance reading avionics publications and white papers even though you work in web design.  Since there are applications for certain aspects of web technology in the aircraft and marine sector.

Ignoring this parallels may not necessarily hurt your chances of maintaining a good career, though you never know, you may also just learn something unique to one industry that you can use to make yourself invaluable in another.

Lastly, expand your interests in other completely unrelated areas.  Both for the networking possibilities and to make sure that your concepts and ideas don't become a victim of the environment they were conceived in.

Studying history, sports and rock climbing for instance may lead you to discover a way  you can implement a service to aid people in these areas.  Whether it be an actual technology related improvement, or if the information simply aids in your ability to connect with people socially, it is worth the time investment.

It is important to remember and be comfortable with allowing change to come in time, and to allow your ultimate concept of self to be detached from what you are working on.