Women in the cannabis industry
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.
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.
[10] Several women have played pioneering roles in analytical chemistry and microbiology labs focused on cannabis and hemp product testing and consumer safety.
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.
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.
"[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.
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.
[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.
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.
[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.
