jobs and marijuana Archives - Canna Communication

a photo of women who might work in a cannabis business

Last week I attended the MJBizConNEXT conference in New Orleans for cannabis entrepreneurs and professionals. This was my first marijuana
conference and I wasn’t quite sure what to expect. The structure was the same as other conferences I’ve been to, keynote speakers and specialized sessions, and of course networking. But what made this one different was, I was surrounded by other professionals who are in my industry—cannabis. It gave me much needed context and perspective on what’s going on in North America, other than my microcosm of West Michigan.

One overwhelming topic from the conference was the importance of women in cannabis businesses.

Irie Selkirk, with Emblem Cannabis in Ontario, gave a great presentation about engaging not only female consumers, but female leaders. She thinks it’s crucial that we establish an industry with strong female leaders, and I couldn’t agree more.

According to a 2015 survey from Marijuana Business Daily, women held 36 percent of leadership positions in the cannabis industry. MJBiz conducted an updated survey on the topic in August 2017, and the number of women in leadership roles had dropped to 27 percent of executive roles. Women need to continue to not only represent in this industry, but to lead this industry. And if we don’t want to see continued drops in women leadership we have ensure that women have power and voice in this industry.

Ms. Selkirk reflected on her first cannabis conference and how she and other women there felt left out. They felt more comfortable sitting outside the building to network, than the expo floor. This brought up a great discussion about how women feel outnumbered on the expo floor, and how men (the vast majority of the vendors are men, with a few booth babes) interact with them. Several of the women in the session felt intimidated by the overwhelming presence of men on the expo floor and didn’t interact as much as they normally would. Ms. Selkirk encouraged women to speak up and take control of what you want to accomplish in cannabis. If you can’t find what you want, create it. Can’t find other women in cannabis to network with? Create your own network. Want a more balanced expo floor? Get some booth space. Make your voice heard and lobby for change.

Kevin O’Leary on ABC’s “Shark Tank.” (Bob D’Amico)

The keynote speaker was Kevin O’Leary from the hit TV show Shark Tank. Mr. O’Leary, or Mr. Wonderful, as he’s fond of calling himself, said he prefers to invest in women-led businesses because he gets better returns. O’Leary found that about 95 percent of the women-led companies meet their financial targets, compared with just 65 percent for businesses with male leaders.

He has a couple of theories about why female-led businesses outperform male-led ones:

Women are better at time management
Women set more achievable goals

He also talked about how when goals are achieved, company morale goes up, which can help create a great culture, which obviously leads to less employee turnover.

In short, his largest returns have been from women-led businesses.

Women—we make up over 50 percent of the US population, yet according to the Institute for Women’s Policy Research, we made only 80.5 cents for every dollar earned by men, a gender wage gap of 20 percent.

The cannabis industry represents the future—a chance to enter a growing industry with relatively low barriers. It is an opportunity to help make medicine available to people who desperately need an alternative to opioids and other over-prescribed drugs. And we have a chance to shape the future of this industry into a more equitable and inclusive environment, where women can make their mark, and open doors of opportunity for future generations.

After all, the future is female.

image of canadian prime minister justin trudeau

cannabis communication

December 12, 2017December 13, 2017Roberta King

Cannabis Growth, Canada and Some Good News Sites to Check Out

It’s an understatement to say that cannabis is going to be an economic game-changer. Recently ArcView Group, which does cannabis research and polling revealed that this year, cannabis sales in North America are expected to reach $10 billion, that’s a 33 percent increase over 2016. Legalization in Canada is a significant part of this projected increase.

Cannabis news is popping up everywhere and mainstream media is covering it regularly.

Think back to other growth industries—automotive, tech, pharma, banking, manufacturing and oil—each of them were heavily covered by the media during their boom periods. While the media has shrunk and local reporters are covering multiple beats, there are reliable resources for cannabis news. We believe it is important for people to carefully source the news they read and share.

We’ve had enough fake news and alternative facts for a lifetime.

So, Canada—the WHOLE country not just a province or two—is going to have adult-use legalized cannabis starting in July 2018. It’s been big news in Canada and not without its challenges and controversies. It’s amazing to consider how fast this has happened in Canada, really just three years since Prime Minister Justin Trudeau made good on his campaign promise. To that end, just last week, the Winnipeg Free Press created a new website for Manitobans (that’s the province where Winnipeg is located) to educate them about the industry and the effect of legalization on the entire country. The site, The Leaf News, is providing, “original cannabis journalism for Canadians.” This new website started us thinking about sources for reliable cannabis news.

These are a few of Our Favorite News Sites

A site worthy of following is The Cannabist. The child of the Denver Post, it covers state and national cannabis news with in-depth reporting on health, politics, business and crime. It also offers two podcasts as well and interesting pop culture items, like how to make cannabutter, a marijuana glossary, parenting tips and recipes. The site has been around for about since about 2013 and it is content-rich.

Leafly, the dispensary index, and crowd-sourced strain review site has a growing news section, too. Among the news topics covered you’ll find science, tech, health, politics, food, travel, sex, and Canada. Editing and writing for Leafly is Bruce Barcott, the author of Weed the People and former writer for The New York Times magazine and National Geographic. Leafly has an interesting video channel, too.

The granddaddy of marijuana news sources is High Times. It’s been around since 1974 and still produces a print magazine as well as a robust website. It covers business, politics, strains, pop culture and has a lot of fun to read 10 articles—like 10 Best Strains to Improve Your Workout, 10 Horror Movies to Watch When You’re Stoned and the like. It has lots of aggregated and original reporting.

Also noteworthy is Ganjapreneur. It is focused on news for people who are working in, or interested in working in cannabis and does some good reporting on cannabis growth and news from across the US. This U.S. map is helpful if you’re looking for the cannabis legalization status and news for each state.

One of the most robust aggregating sites is 420intel that touts itself as a global news source. We can’t vouch for all of the sources of news—though at the very end of the story—they do reveal the original source. That’s helpful for discerning news junkies.

Worth a shout out, too, is Michigan’s own Detroit Metro Times. The alternative weekly has been covering marijuana in Michigan with more than a passing interest for a few years. It’s Higher Ground column covers a variety of cannabis issues and is worth checking out, just pop Higher Ground in the search box.

marijuana and taxes, marijuana history

October 25, 2017November 7, 2017Roberta King

How Will we Celebrate The End of Marijuana Prohibition?

I recently received an invitation to my local community foundation’s annual donor event. The headline reads: “Something’s brewing in Muskegon County!” It invites patrons to “distill the essence of new frontiers in placemaking and economic development through craft beer and spirits.” The speakers for the event are the founders and craftmasters from three local breweries and a distillery.

We’re in!

Celebrating the impact of craft beer and locally distilled spirits is important. The craft beer industry is still booming and Michigan is fifth in the nation for breweries with more than 240 in operation and more than 40 distilleries. Craft breweries are the new corner bars of pre-prohibition times, places where people gather with friends and family to talk, play games, listen to music and drink locally made beer, cider and spirits.

By the time the 18^th amendment was adopted in 1920, the alcohol prohibition movement was gaining steam across America. Led by the Women’s Christian Temperance Union and other religious forces, the movement to take alcohol away from people began in the Midwest and spread quickly. From 1920 to 1933 all of America was under prohibition—people could drink alcohol, but the amendment prohibited making, transporting and selling of booze. By all measures, the 18^th amendment was a failure and it was repealed. Bootlegging and blackmarket booze was rampant.

So, What does this have to do with cannabis?

Well, it’s a similar story of prohibition and acceptance.

Marijuana prohibition came shortly after the repeal of alcohol in 1937. As it often does, the feds held hearings on marijuana law in the 1930s to “fact check” claims about marijuana inciting violence in black men and causing them to solicit sex from white women. These claims, which were taken as truth, helped create the Marijuana Tax Act of 1937, which banned the use and sale of cannabis.

The Act was ruled unconstitutional and decades later under President Nixon it was deemed even more dangerous and given its Schedule I designation under the Controlled Substance Act.

So prohibition continues. New product, same failure.

One day, in the future, we expect that cannabis will be standing in the same place as alcohol as an economic and place-making entity. According to ArcView Market Research, Michigan has the potential to have the third-largest state medical cannabis state market by 2020, just behind California and Colorado. It is expected that we’ll have $556 million sales that year. And this doesn’t project what might happen if/when adult-use recreational is implemented in Michigan, which could be as soon as 2020.

We heard an interesting statement from the city manager in Muskegon Heights recently. He projected the tax and licensing revenue from just 14 medical marijuana licenses could bring in at least $250,000 in the first year—thus erasing the community’s budget deficit.

In the future, when marijuana prohibition ends and Michigan sees the benefit of tax income, jobs and tourism from all marijuana sales (which tend to be bigger than expected, as in Oregon) we envision that cannabis entrepreneurs will be invited to the stage and celebrated for the positive community change that they’ve helped make.

cannabis legalization, marijuana and taxes

June 20, 2017November 7, 2017Roberta King

Marijuana in Michigan=Job Creation

Cannabis is a Job Creator.

Without a doubt, Michigan is poised to be the next hot spot for marijuana jobs. With 9.5 million residents in Michigan compared to 5.4 million in Colorado, we’ll be a cannabis powerhouse as the industry grows and becomes normalized.

Michigan is Ready.

While the focus at present is on Michigan’s licensing of the medical use of cannabis, there is traction (petitions are now being circulated) for an adult-use ballot measure focused in 2018 and polls indicate that Michigan voters favor adult use legalization. An Epic MRA poll conducted in early 2017 indicated that 53 percent of likely voters favored legalization. Colorado holds the distinction of being America’s first adult-use state and that gives us an idea of the possible revenue generation in Michigan.

In early 2017, the revenue for the state of Colorado had pushed past $1 billion, that’s $1 billion of taxable money or about $200 million for state coffers. Imagine what Michigan, with twice the population, could do with $400 million in new tax dollars. And Pure Michigan could benefit from cannabis, too. Michigan attracts more tourists than Colorado—113.4 million people visit Michigan each year, compared to Colorado with 77.1 million. Nearly 24 percent of young people say that legal cannabis influenced their decision to visit Colorado.

High Growth Industry

As American manufacturing declines, jobs in the cannabis field are on the rise. According to a report from New Frontier Data, it is expected that by 2020 that legal cannabis will create more than a quarter of a million jobs. And according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, this is more than new job creation in manufacturing, government, and utilities. It is expected that 300,000 jobs will be created in cannabis—and that doesn’t take into account states like Michigan, which is just now looking at legalizing adult-use of the plant. Empty warehouses in urban areas can be repurposed for growing facilities as they have in other metropolitan areas.

Grown in Michigan, It Stays in Michigan

All cannabis products grown within a state must stay in that state, it’s illegal to export across state lines. That includes plants and plant products like edibles, oils, tinctures and such. With this restriction, all monies (and jobs) connected with cannabis will benefit Michigan only. That means more payroll taxes, more city income taxes and to benefit people in the mitten state.