Hollie Cooper cleans a set of grow lights after harvesting cannabis plants at Northern Lights' grow facility in Denver, Colorado. (Seth McConnell, The Denver Post)

Women in weed need to make a mark before industry becomes a ‘boy’s club’

Many prominent ladies in the marijuana industry agree: Women need to make their mark now, while the legal industry is still young and growing, to make it a more equitable business space.

“If we don’t start trying to shift the dialogue now about what that means to have women represented in this kind in an equitable manner … we need to start these conversations now so we can in fact build a better kind of industry,” Betty Aldworth, executive director of Students for Sensible Drug Policy, said on a recent episode of The Cannabist Show.

Marijuana editor Ricardo Baca also asks Aldworth about an opinion piece she wrote for The Cannabist about the blatant sexism she’s seen in the cannabis industry (“I was done with being evaluated based on my bits and not my brains,” she said), and Women Grow founder Jane West pushes for more women to enter the cannabis industry now — to prevent a glass ceiling from being built.

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