When Mary Jane Gibson started working at High Times in 2004, the magazine featured women in bikinis on the cover, holding pot leaves over their crotches. It also hosted a "Miss High Times" pageant every year and featured scantily-clad "booth babes" at events.
"That was a huge part of how High Times appealed to their demographic, which was very young and very male," said Gibson, who wrote for and edited at the magazine until 2018. "It always really bothered me." But gradually, she saw things start to shift.
The industry professionalized, trying to shed its frat-boy image, and became much more welcoming — and more open as states approved legislation legalizing the use of marijuana. Though states had started to legalize medical cannabis in 1996, Colorado and Washington state were the first to legalize adult recreational use in 2012, opening the door for a surge of entrepreneurs.
As legal marijuana sales soared to $5.4 billion nationwide in 2015, Gibson saw women from all walks of life flood into the industry — starting dispensaries, launching brands and creating new products. "It was really exciting. We were seeing moms, young women, women of color, queer women, women who were really wonderful at what they did, making a play in this brand new frontier."
And it seemed that women were not only welcome in this fast-growing industry, they were leading it: a much-publicized statistic from Marijuana Business Daily showed that women held 36 percent of leadership positions in the industry, putting it well above the 22 percent average for U.S. companies in general. Thinkpiece writers wondered if the nascent industry "could be the first billion-dollar industry not dominated by men."
But two years later, the optimism faded. The number fell from 36 to 27 percent in 2017 as investors and big business interests descended on the industry, creating a "green rush" that started to push small-business owners, many of them women, out of the market. But in 2019, it ticked up again, to nearly 37 percent.
Is gender parity possible?
These zig-zagging statistics demonstrate the tenuous position of female leadership in cannabis. Marijuana is becoming mainstream and starting to look like any other businesses, where men dominate the upper ranks, but many women in the industry still think it's possible to achieve true gender parity. Women in the industry must contend with sexism, a lack of access to investment funds and the stigma of working with a controlled substance, but they also have a unique opportunity to collaborate and cater to a growing segment of female cannabis users.
Jennifer Whetzel, who runs a cannabis-focused marketing firm in Maine, talked to more than 800 women in the U.S. and Canada about their experiences in the industry as part of her company's multi-year Women in Cannabis study. "We asked straight up, 'do you think women are treated equitably in the cannabis industry?' 70 percent said no, and another 19 percent were unsure," said Whetzel.
For all the advances by women in the industry, their gender still matters in the male dominated business world. A 2019 report from Vangst, the largest staffing company in the marijuana space, surveyed 166 companies in 17 states and found that 38.5 percent of employees identified as female. That puts the share of female employees above male-dominated industries such as technology, where women make up 20 percent of the workforce, or alcohol and tobacco, where 26 percent of workers are female. But it's far from the 50-50 split envisioned in 2015.
Many of the obstacles that women cited were not unique to the cannabis industry, said Whetzel. "It's not being taken seriously, having to work harder than male counterparts, having questions redirected to a man in a meeting," she said, recalling multiple occasions when clients assumed that her male employee was head of the company. "He would often get asked questions when we were together and would have to direct them to me, you know, because I'm the founder."
"Cannabis is still kind of a good old boys club," said Amy Margolis, a Portland, Ore. attorney who defended cannabis growers in criminal court before pivoting with her clients into the legal market. "It still has its challenges with sexism and it still has challenges with not treating female workers very well."
The struggle to get funded
Many of these issues are exacerbated by the unique nature of the legal marijuana industry, where heavy regulations and taxes cut into profits, making it nearly impossible to succeed in the industry without support from investors or venture capital. In any industry, female-led companies are less likely to receive investment dollars — a 2019 report from TechCrunch found that less than 3 percent of VC funding went to all-female founding teams, while an additional 9 percent went to mixed-gender teams.
"In a constricted capital industry, where there's only so many people investing and only so many dedicated funds, you multiply the challenges," said Margolis. Sensing that women in the industry were losing ground, Margolis started The Initiative, an accelerator program for female cannabis entrepreneurs.
"Around 2017, it became very clear that women were losing space," said Margolis. She said that the influx of investors "really just changed the dynamic. I represented so many people and I could physically see who was coming in to visit and raise money or invest money." The Initiative aims to close that gap by giving cohorts of qualified entrepreneurs the skills and network to connect with investors and successfully launch their businesses.
"[Women] can't get meetings, they can't get in to see fundraisers or to see people who they need to raise money from," said Margolis. "One time, we were hosting a roundtable discussion about fundraising, and we had a gentleman with a fund in there who said, 'I don't get any pitch decks from women companies.' One of the women, from across the room called bullshit. She had sent him her pitch deck and he never opened it," she said. Often, situations like these can discourage women from seeking investment at all.
"You will not meet a more resilient, insane group of entrepreneurs," she added. "There is no other industry that has these kinds of restrictions and siloed markets...you have to be so nimble and move so fast and be able to pivot really quickly. It makes everyone who's managed to survive pretty fantastic."
Female entrepreneurs often do not have the financial network that their male counterparts do, said Jeanne Sullivan, a general partner at The Arcview Group, a cannabis-focused investment firm in San Francisco. This lack of connections or comfort in the finance world can hurt their chances of getting funded. Sullivan added: "we don't want to screw it up like we did the tech industry. We want it to be better."
Ironically, or maybe not, women may be in the best position to help other women with leadership roles in the cannabis industry. Sullivan speaks frequently at industry events, encouraging women to shore up their financial literacy and improve their networking skills to make it in an increasingly competitive business. "No one is born knowing this," she said.
Margolis stated that education is a start, but it isn't enough; substantive change also needs to come from investors. "People who are in a position to write checks need to seriously consider the way that they are allocating capital between men and women in this industry," she said.
Marketing to the female consumer
At the same time that women seem to be losing space in the industry, catering to the female consumer is becoming more of a focus. Eaze, a California-based marijuana delivery service, has seen more women in its user base every year. Women made up 40 percent of users in 2019, compared to 25 percent in 2015. Sheena Shiravi, a director of marketing at the company, said that legalization has allowed women to be more open with their cannabis consumption.
Elissa Hambrecht worked in Northern California's startup culture for years, launching restaurants, wineries and media companies. When one of her companies, a high-tech wine subscription service, lost funding in 2013, the serial entrepreneur thought it might be time to make a play in cannabis. But after a brief stint developing an early-model vape pen for the medical and black markets, she backed out of the industry.
"The stigma was still very much alive in 2013. I couldn't even talk to my parents about it, and they're hippies in Santa Cruz! I have three kids, and at the dinner table I'm always talking about work, but I was like oh gosh, I can't talk about this work," said Hambrecht. But as she saw California's legalization movement gaining traction in 2015, she felt like the industry had radically shifted. Marijuana and its high-tech incarnations — drinks, drops, oils and sprays — were being marketed explicitly toward working moms like her.
In 2017, she launched Fumé Brands, a vertically-integrated cannabis company based in Napa Valley. With muted, elegant packaging and an emphasis on sustainable farming, the brand wouldn't look out of place at Whole Foods. "I always talk about the soccer mom in Palo Alto. She wants to take the edge off because she's driving around in a carpool but she can't be inebriated...so the products have to be discreet, like a vape pen or an edible," said Hambrecht.
These mild, more wellness-focused cannabis products can be used to deal with postpartum depression or menstrual cramps, or they can replace a nightly glass of wine. Hambrecht even posits that cannabis will overtake the wine industry: "it's going to be much bigger than wine and spirits because of the applications for both health and wellness and recreation. There are new products galore, especially for women," she said.
But the "pink it and shrink it" branding strategy can feel patronizing to longtime female consumers, said Gibson, the former High Times editor. "This company came through when I was at High Times and they really wanted me to review their 'vape pen for women' — it was pink and fucking strawberry flavored. I was like, 'is this a pen for like 12-year-old girls?'...in my experience, what women who love weed want is just good weed."
The cost of doing business
But as female entrepreneurs work to bridge the worlds of cannabis and high finance, many emphasize that they aren't in the industry for the money. And despite talk of a marijuana-based "green rush," many of them have actually lost money since entering the cannabis business.
"When we asked about sacrifices made to work in cannabis, money and savings was number one," said Whetzel, the Women in Cannabis study coordinator. Licensing and start-up fees can quickly add up, and banks and credit unions are hesitant to work with businesses that are still federally illegal.
Chelsea Sutula is a textbook example. Since she started working with medical marijuana in 2013, Sutula has been denied housing and kicked off of insurance and retirement plans. In 2016, she was arrested and spent the night in jail after her home and office were raided by the Ventura County Sheriff's Office — less than a week before California voted to legalize cannabis for recreational use.
"We were operating really aboveboard, following all the rules. We paid workers' comp and insurance and kept all the employees on payroll. It was legit...but they were convinced that I was hiding cash," said Sutula. She was fully exonerated in May 2019 after a long legal battle, but is still waiting to get some of her seized property back, including private journals, computers and $250,000 of now-worthless inventory.
"I had to try to contain the rage and anger I was feeling and channel it into moving forward," said Sutula. "After that happened, there was enough community outreach that the city of Ojai made an emergency ordinance to allow three dispensaries. So that's all I focused on for the next year: finding a spot, getting the permit and the licenses, building it out, hiring a staff and putting the pieces back together."
Sutula opened Sespe Creek Collective, the first licensed dispensary in Ventura County, almost exactly a year after her arrest. Like many cannabis businesses, the dispensary relied on investors to get off the ground.
"I continue to get financially wounded from being in this industry and now I just kind of have to accept it," said Sutula. "Right now I'm living in a really privileged place where I have a license in Ojai, a beautiful space, and my business is actually doing well compared to a lot of others. It's so unstable and uncertain in the [cannabis] world...so I'm just trying to stay cool and go for the ride."
Why women stay in the industry
But even as the deterrents add up, women stay in the industry because of their passion for cannabis — in both medicinal and recreational contexts — and the strong sense of community with other entrepreneurs. Often, the connection to the product can verge on spiritual.
"I actually decided to get into the cannabis industry in high school," said Misty Brunson, co-founder of cannabis processing company Caviar Gold. "My mother and my sister were addicted to pharmaceuticals, and I never went that route. I used cannabis instead. When I got caught smoking at school and the principal had to kick me out, I basically proclaimed right then and there that it was going to be legal one day and I was going to be in the industry," said Brunson.
After working in the black market for several years, the Oklahoma native moved west with her husband to establish a business in the legal market — first to Colorado, then to California. At first, they found themselves risking not only their finances, but also ties with friends and family. "I took a huge risk. My family disowned me for a while, and being a mother, especially in the early stages of cannabis legalization, I had to basically lie about what I did for a living so my kids could still have friends come over," said Brunson, who has three sons.
"Here we are 10 years later and we've been through at all...we've been sold bad product, been screwed out of a license, had to go through all of our savings and liquidate businesses. It has not been easy," said Brunson. But ultimately, her belief in the product — especially its potential as an alternative to pharmaceutical drugs — outweighs the hardships.
"Cannabis is about healing. It's an herb, it's a medicine, it's God's plant. And as women, it's so much easier to connect that maternal energy that we have to this industry," said Brunson. "I truly believe this is my purpose, like I am being divinely guided to do what I do."