We keep hearing the cannabis industry is poised to be North America’s first blllion-dollar industry dominated by women, who make up 36 percent of executive positions. Not too shabby, really: women make up just 14.6 percent of executives in the U.S. overall. But that doesn’t mean the nascent industry doesn’t present some unique challenges for women.
Jazmin Hupp, 32, Founder & CEO of Women Grow, has been featured in Forbes and dubbed a “genius entrepreneur” by Fortune Magazine. Women Grow hosts educational events and online resources to unite and educate people in the cannabis industry.
While women are well-represented in her organization, Hupp tells Civilized, “There are heavy challenges that women face starting any business. We want to make sure that the script was different for the cannabis industry – for women, people of color, for veterans. Since cannabis serves a wide audience, we need a wide selection of people to represent that audience.”
The workplace should be diverse, inclusive
At Women Grow, the culture is focused toward promoting diversity and workplace inclusion, taking a cue from the needs of the women it employs.
“All of our staff have a flexible, remote working schedule,” says Hupp, “so that they can go have lunch with their kids on their birthday, let’s say. Little changes make a huge difference.”
Candice,
Good takes, but focused awfully heavily on workplace diversity and inclusion, not enough on changing existing law regarding banking restrictions care of DEA, not to mention security of your grow rooms and possible stores. Massachusetts has a warrant attached to the Presidential ballot this November (warrant being just an issue to vote on) allowing recreational weed, personal grows of 6 plants, and they’re making all effort to develop a breathalyzer to test for recent smoking-while-driving. This warrant is reaping roughly 85% approval rates in local polls all over the Commonwealth. Good news for WomenGrow in Massachusetts. Except for a few items, this bodes well, but does not go far enough.
My personal ax to grind is how to strike down workplace stigma and job loss over positive drug results via urine testing. It does no good to legalize if the same policies remain in place. It’s understood among “good ambassadors”, and I consider myself one, that no one should be driving or working on a job site while stoned, especially on the quality of weed being passed about these days. Understand all. And the breath-tests being developed will aid employers in discriminating between and determining at-work use vs at-home use.
However, the urine tests, because of their primitive nature (the old thirty-day rule), make smoking pot a de facto illegal activity no matter how the laws change if you lose your job over these tests. Ergo, public service, law enforcement members, military and all contractors to any state, Federal or Local agency (likely 85% of the US population of working age) are still effectively banned from partaking no matter the positive legal implications of the new laws. Aside from the cruelty of the circumstance for said workers (and I won’t go into the issues of the Veteran’s Admin, but I could as I’m a Veteran) , no matter the new laws, without a major change in workplace tolerance for off workplace, personal-time use of marijuana, the market WomenGrow will face will be severely stunted.
There simply has to be a change in that somehow. I have ideas, but enough for now. I’ll check back to see if there’s interest. Your “Join Now” buttons aren’t live, but I wish you all well and hope it works. WG is a worthy cause. Feel free to email me for tips and further concerns. I know some folks in the business and their problems and some solutions at hand. Perhaps you’re just a “budding” organization, pun intended, but yeah, a little more aggression toward lawmakers would be useful. Again, I have ideas. Be well, one and all and good luck!
Jim Christian