[8] According to a report by university researcher Jon Gettman, cannabis is the United States' largest cash crop and "a pervasive and ineradicable part of the national economy".
[18]: 7 In a Huffington Post interview, Mark Kleiman, the "Pot Czar" of Washington state, said he was concerned that the National Cannabis Industry Association would favor profits over public health.
Kleiman said: "The fact that the National Cannabis Industry Association has hired itself a K Street suit [lobbyist] is not a good sign.
"[19] United States financial institutions, CPAs, and lawyers struggle with conflicting advice from NASBA and Treasury over their risks to provide services to the legal cannabis industry.
[citation needed] The contradiction between the federal Controlled Substances Act and local or state legalization is called "the single most defining characteristic of the [cannabis] industry".
The addition of ancillary products and services amounts to an economic impact that is estimated at four times the value of direct sales of cannabis.
The mission is to discover opportunities for success for university students in cannabis or related fields through education, networking, and recruiting.
[28] Selling accessories related to cannabis is not explicitly illegal in most countries, and such products has been gaining popularity for several decades.
[29][30] Most research, both governmental and privately funded, does not investigate women's roles and placement within the extremely lucrative and growing marijuana industry.
[32] Slightly more current data by Forbes Magazine's 2019 survey of 166 cannabis businesses in 17 different states across the America finds that 38.5% of employees self-identified as female.
These gender-based barriers are key to examining women's place and access to the industry in present day, which is often overlooked or goes unacknowledged.
This claim is disputed among scholars as some find women to be less concerned about risk factors than in the early years of the industry.
As the cannabis industry continues to grow, there is evidence of higher numbers of female owners and executives compared with other United States businesses as a whole.