There has been a steady movement for the decriminalization of cannabis worldwide. Many organizations call for their governments to allow recreational and medical cannabis, and it’s hard to deny how valuable the cash crop can be for the local economy. Learn how some cannabis brands are contributing to decriminalizing cannabis and making an impact.
As it stands, 19 U.S. states have fully legalized cannabis, and another 19 have medical marijuana programs. While this is fantastic progress, it’s still leaving many people convicted of drug crimes, medical patients, and minorities behind. While some places go the extra mile, there are still many places where it’s a punishable crime with the smallest amount of cannabis. Cannabis laws continue to evolve to protect users, such as the new California law that protects employees from smoking outside work hours.
A bill to decriminalize marijuana passed in the U.S. House in April, but there’s not a lot of hope that Congress will take it up. However, the fact that it was proposed shows that recreational and medical cannabis is becoming closer to the mainstream.
Global Cannabis Decriminalization
Canada, Mexico, South Africa, Thailand, and Malta have legalized adult-use cannabis. The list is relatively short and shows that there’s still progress worldwide.
It’s become clear that many think it doesn’t make sense for people to go to prison for cannabis possession. Programs have been set up in most states and some countries to expunge cannabis possession records and free people who are locked up unjustly.
Here’s a quick introduction to some of these programs and how states, businesses, and individuals push cannabis decriminalization and legalization forward.
States Create Social Equity Programs
A common critique of the cannabis industry is that it’s dominated by white people who were never negatively impacted by anti-marijuana laws. Social equity programs in many states are working hard to level the playing field.
While each state has different qualifications, eligible people must live in an area strongly affected by high arrest and imprisonment rates for cannabis activity. Applicants might also receive extra assistance if they were arrested or convicted of marijuana crimes before legalization.
Some businesses also offer reduced product prices, grants, and loans for cannabis enterprises founded using social equity programs. This makes it easier for minorities to get the funding they need to start the industry.
Programs To Help Minorities with Cannabis Jobs
Not everyone who wants to get involved in the cannabis field is interested in running their own business. Some organizations are also making it easier for people of color to find jobs in the field.
The Minority Cannabis Academy is a New Jersey program that helps young Black Indigenous people of color find their vocation in the cannabis industry. It trains them to work as budtenders in existing dispensaries, giving them a leg up for employment.
In Illinois, cannabis companies can expedite their application for a license if the majority of their staff has been convicted of a cannabis-related offense in the past. This incentivizes businesses to hire minorities and people who need help from these programs.
More programs like these should be developed nationwide if we want a positive representation of BIPOC in the cannabis industry.
Grants Given to Provide Legal Assistance for Expunging Nonviolent Cannabis Crimes
Having a marijuana conviction on your record can have lasting consequences. Drug convictions come up in background checks, and since they carry a significant stigma, people can lose out on employment opportunities when a company judges them harshly for their past.
A cannabis conviction can also make it difficult to rent an apartment or buy a home. Plus, people with drug convictions have been denied student loans and other loans from financial institutions.
When Illinois legalized cannabis in 2019, it was important to lawmakers that people who were convicted for marijuana crimes previously were able to clear their records.
An excellent organization focused on eliminating people’s cannabis records called the Illinois Equal Justice Foundation is taking a step forward. They will award over $1.4 million in grants spread throughout 18 organizations in the state to help rid people of their cannabis records. The funding will assist legal aid groups, so they can represent people in court and are committed to educating people about their expungement options.
Thailand has pushed its efforts even further. When the country delisted cannabis as a narcotic in June, they also released 3,071 inmates who had been convicted of cannabis-related crimes.
Canada has issued pardons for people with previous marijuana convictions for several years. The process can be slow, but the government feels strongly that these people should be released, and their records wiped clean.
These models show that it’s possible to legalize marijuana while still caring for people whose criminalization has been negatively impacted. Experts are hopeful that President Biden will free individuals in jail for marijuana possession, but the future in the United States remains unclear.
How Brands Can Help Impact Positive Change In The Right Direction
King Palm is a cannabis smoking accessory brand that has created a Last Prisoner Project rolling tray to help spread awareness of that non-profit organization.
This cannabis smoking accessory brand is donating to the Last Prisoner Project. This nonprofit organization is committed to freeing people convicted of marijuana-related crimes.
The organization works hard to advocate for bills that would free people from prison for marijuana offenses, and once people are freed, they help them integrate back into their communities.
Expungement Assistance
Many states are setting up expungement assistance programs that anyone can access. The process can take time and be confusing, but many people find it extremely worthwhile.
In 2021, Michigan passed the Clean Slate Act, which expanded the types of crimes that can be expunged. Some expungements will even be automatic under the law. The state says hundreds of thousands to millions of people are now eligible for their criminal records to be wiped clean.
Another strong member of the National Cannabis Industry Association is Cannabis Equity Illinois. They help community members expunge or seal their criminal records for cannabis and also advocate for automatic expungement. They also provide Know Your Rights seminars, so no one is criminalized for cannabis use.
Looking for help expunging your legal record with cannabis? Many areas have expungement events, and you can find exactly what you need to do on your state’s website.
Support for cannabis decriminalization is growing, but there’s still a long way to go. Luckily, many governments, businesses, and nonprofit organizations are doing their part to make cannabis mainstream and help minorities make their way up through the budding industry.
Mack Bush (they/them) is a freelance writer who is passionate about sharing the joys of cannabis with the world. They manage their fibromyalgia with medical marijuana, and it’s opened up new doors and improved their quality of life. They live in Grand Rapids, Michigan with their cats, Rigatoni and Jasper. Find out more about their work at mackbush.com.
King Palm is one of the leading cannabis companies in the world for joint wraps, pre-rolled cones, and rolling papers. Their specialty palm wraps are made from Cordia leaves and allow you to get in touch with nature while you smoke. They also create quality smoking accessories, including electronic devices like concentrate vapes and nectar collectors, as well as lighters, rolling trays, grinders, and ashtrays. Find out more about their products at kingpalm.com!
America’s Own Homegrown Industry
Co-authored by NCIA and BDS Analytics
It all begins with the humble plant.
The fastest-growing industry in the United States relies 100 percent upon the simple cultivation and harvesting of one plant, cannabis sativa — its buds, its leaves, and the diversity of organic compounds the plant provides, including THC.
If the plant is grown indoors, as is most legal cannabis in the United States, it first needs a building before it ever digs roots and spreads a canopy. The building requires complicated lights, many of which are manufactured in the United States. It demands a wilderness of HVAC networks, to maintain a healthy temperature and humidity level. Irrigation systems, potting soil and soil amendments, complex sprinkler systems in case of fire, high-tech security systems — all of these and much more must be in place before the first plant begins to rise towards the light.
And these first steps produce jobs and work: real estate professionals, lawyers, accountants, bookkeepers, electricians, carpenters, plumbers, HVAC specialists, irrigation experts, sprinkler and alarm installation technicians, factory workers. Once the building is ready, the company needs horticulture experts and trimmers, among others. And it requires ongoing work, too, from electricians and other trades specialists, as things break and need to be replaced or updated. The cultivation of the plant alone is a rapidly-developing career field.
But hands-on growing represents just one small patch of the cannabis landscape. Every step along the way, from seed to store, propagates work for people in hardhats, lab coats and blazers. And all of the jobs are Made in the USA. Even more, due to the patchwork regulatory environment, cannabis industry jobs also tend to root, and stay put, within individual states and communities.
Legal cannabis today in the United States is the ultimate homegrown industry. Detailed sales data from industry market research firm BDS Analytics reveals astounding growth within states where cannabis is legal. For example, during the first quarter of 2018 in Colorado, where sales of recreational cannabis have been legal since 2014, dollar sales of concentrates in recreational shops grew by 47.4 percent compared to the first quarter of 2017. Concentrates do not represent a tiny piece of the overall recreational marketplace: During this year’s first quarter, adult use concentrates sales hit $85.35 million, and captured a full 30 percent of the recreational marketplace. That’s an enormous chunk of the state’s mature adult use cannabis market, and yet sales still expand by close to 50% within a year.
And with all of that growth, quarter after quarter, comes increased need for workers.
States with laws that replace criminal marijuana markets with regulated industries are also benefiting from significant tax revenues that support important programs like school construction, law enforcement, and drug education. According to the National Cannabis Industry Association’s , the five states that allowed adult-use sales realized nearly $800 million in combined state tax revenue alone.
Industry investment and market research firms The Arcview Group and BDS Analytics predicted in their study US Legal Cannabis: Driving $40 Billion Economic Output that the industry will hatch 414,000 jobs in a multitude of fields both directly and ancillary related to cannabis by 2021 — everything from delivery drivers to retail sales pros to extraction technicians, warehouse workers, bakers, marketing gurus, and PhDs in pest control.
The industry’s impact is certainly felt in Colorado, which began retail cannabis sales for adult use on Jan. 1, 2014 — the first in the nation to do so. Many economic experts attribute the state’s lowest-in-the-nation unemployment rate, at least in part, to the cannabis boom.
Colorado’s ascending sales results, as well as those in the other cannabis-legal states, would likely resound with even more oomph if two difficult issues could be resolved: banking, and the ability to write off business expenses for cannabis companies.
As the industry’s leading national advocate, NCIA is working hard on both fronts.
The Small Business Tax Equity Act of 2017, co-sponsored by Rep. Carlos Curbelo (R-FL) and Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR), seeks to let cannabis companies operating legally under state law to implement business-related tax credits or deductions for expenses — the entire issue is often referred to simply as 280E (the applicable section of the tax code) as shorthand. For now, the federal government treats marijuana sales in legal states the same way it treats sales of illegally-trafficked drugs — needless to say, people illegally selling controlled substances cannot itemize tax deductions or claim business-related tax credits but NCIA believes that state-licensed businesses should not be caught up in the wide net cast by 280E.
Meanwhile, the Secure and Fair Enforcement (SAFE) Banking Act seeks to provide a “safe harbor” and additional protections for depository institutions that want to engage with cannabis companies that are in compliance with state law. Rep. Ed Perlmutter (D-CO) and Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-OR) are co-sponsors of this important legislation, which finally would, among other things, provide cannabis companies access to bank loans — taken for granted in most industries, but long outlawed in legal cannabis.
The success of the industry truly astounds despite such profound roadblocks. Success in alleviating such banking and taxation headaches would further stoke what is already the hottest industry in the country.
Research into the economic benefits of cannabis legalization and regulation is just beginning, and for now it remains too early to make definitive declarations about how legalization will influence the economic path of different communities. Undoubtedly the effects will vary from location to location — the effect on San Francisco, for example, may be entirely different from the effect on Fort Collins, Colorado.
One early study, conducted by the University of Colorado-Pueblo’s Institute of Cannabis Research, found that legalization in Pueblo, a diverse, blue-collar area about two hours south of Denver, could be responsible for the County’s recent success. In addition, the study rejected predictions that legalization would bring increased homelessness and crime to the region.
“When compared to similar communities in states where cannabis is not legal in any form, Pueblo appears to be doing better on a variety of measures,” the study says. “Overall, the positive changes that are noticed in Pueblo County, such as increasing real estate values, higher income per capita, and more construction spending may be attributed to legalization of cannabis in the state of Colorado.”
To date, cannabis still represents a fairly small slice of the employment pie in Colorado. A recent study conducted by the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City estimated the industry directly supports 17,821 jobs today. The study’s author writes: “Employment in the marijuana industry is a relatively small share of total employment in Colorado, but in recent years it has been one of the state’s fastest-growing industries,” adding that between 2016 and 2017 jobs in cannabis rose by 17.7 percent.
The study also noted the effect Colorado’s cannabis industry has had on state government coffers; in 2017 alone, it added $247 million to the budget. Cannabis tax receipts go to a variety of places. The state’s Building Excellent Schools Today school construction program, for example, receives the first $40 million from excise taxes on wholesale cannabis, and Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper recently signed a bill that will drastically increase this amount. Local governments receive another 10 percent of the taxation haul.
Nationwide, the cannabis industry now supports close to 10,000 active cannabis licenses — that is, businesses that need licenses to grow, manufacture, distribute or sell the plant, according to CannaBiz Media, which tracks marijuana licenses. These “touch-the-plant” businesses are the sturdy and rapidly expanding trunk of a flourishing industry — without them, none of the other jobs and businesses that are sprouting up around cannabis sales today would exist.
But if touch-the-plant businesses are the trunks of the industry, the branches, leaves and flowers are the ancillary jobs — those that don’t grow, manufacture or sell marijuana directly. Of those anticipated 414,000 cannabis jobs by 2021, many will not sprout directly from licensed businesses. For example, software developers targeting the cannabis industry are flourishing. Entrepreneurs across the country are opening factories that make everything from plastic containers and child-safe bags for cannabis, to customized extraction equipment. New legal, public relations, marketing, and other professional services appear every day that revolve around the industry.
During a recent economic conference, Ian Siegel, the CEO of ZipRecruiter, which is a prominent job recruitment marketplace, said of cannabis: “Twenty-nine states have legalized marijuana [in some form]. There’s a 445 percent job growth in job listings in the category year-over-year.” By comparison, Siegel said other hard-charging industries like technology and healthcare lag far behind, with job growth at 245 percent and 70 percent respectively. He also noted that cannabis jobs expansion grew at a more rapid pace during Q4 2017, which saw an increase of 693 percent compared to the previous year.
As growth rockets ahead (new jobs, workers with new skills, growing tax revenues, etc.), the same trajectory is beginning to rise in Canada, where adult-use cannabis use is expected to begin later this summer. Despite Canada’s relatively small size — with a population of 35 million, it is smaller than California and dwarfed by the United States population of nearly 326 million — it enjoys a distinct advantage on the global stage: Canada allows cannabis exports. Growers and manufacturers in Canada ship cannabis to Germany, Israel and other countries that seek cannabis for their medical programs (only one other country in the world, Uruguay, enjoys legal adult-use cannabis use and sales). This is a fairly small market, for now. But as more and more countries embrace the medical, if not adult-use, benefits of cannabis, it is a marketplace destined to expand and grow increasingly dynamic. Permitting cannabis exports remains another NCIA priority.
Either way, the cannabis revolution is here, across the United States — where it all began. It is the ultimate homegrown industry, one we all should embrace, nurture and strengthen. It’s good for America, and good for America’s cities, towns and citizens.
This post was co-authored by the National Cannabis Industry Association, the largest cannabis trade association in the U.S. and the only one representing cannabis businesses at the national level and BDS Analytics, the leader in providing comprehensive cannabis market intelligence and consumer research. Learn more about NCIA by visiting: thecannabisindustry.org. Learn more about BDS Analytics by visiting: bdsanalytics.com.
Guest Post: Best Practices for Interviewing Candidates in the Cannabis Industry
As our industry continues to grow and develop, it is important that we make sure that our human resource practices are in line with that of other established industries. This includes the recruiting and hiring of employees…the most critical part of this process being the interview. Here are a few things to keep in mind when interviewing potential candidates for your cannabusiness:
1. Set the tone and boundaries of the interview from the beginning
If you set expectations from the beginning of the interview that you will only be discussing the individual’s work experience and how this qualifies them for the role, you set a tone that will hopefully avoid any disclosure of information that could put the organization at risk. What makes interviewing candidates in this industry more difficult than others is that many have a very personal relationship with the plant and launch into telling you the story about this relationship if you don’t initially set the tone. Why this could end up being difficult for employers is that the information a candidate may want to volunteer could potentially put you at risk. Hiring decisions should be based on an individual’s qualifications for the job and culture fit for the organization.
For example, if an individual begins to address a health condition as a reason for their interest in the industry, this could put you in a challenging position. If for some reason an interviewing candidate discloses a health condition during the interview process, divert the topic immediately and move on to something else. You will also want to keep this information to yourself so other interviewers are not biased to make a hiring decision based on this information. Again, hiring decisions should be based entirely on a person’s ability to do the job and their culture fit for the organization. Ask questions that allow them to shine, while still getting to the heart of the matter regarding their experience, skills, and temperament to assess whether or not they would be a good match for your organization.
The EEOC (Equal Employment Opportunity Commission) is the division of the U.S. government that enforces violations of discrimination. They ensure that job applicants and employees are not being discriminated against on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, disability, or genetic information. Be mindful of the kinds of questions you ask so you don’t expose your company to accusations of unlawful discrimination.
2. Train your interviewers
Interviewing is not something that comes naturally to everyone. In order to make sure you are interviewing potential candidates appropriately, train your interviewers! If you are less than confident that you’re observing best practices, an experienced HR or staffing professional should be able to bring you and your fellow hiring managers up to speed.
3. Be careful when requiring ‘tests’
Many of you might want to administer ‘tests’ to employees as a way to determine their qualifications. While this may seem like an easy way to weed through the good and bad candidates, you must be cautious using this approach. Make sure your tests are relevant to the job in question to help shield your company from charges of discrimination. In addition, not all companies offering testing services are created equal. Make sure you do your research and ask questions around the potential liability of using their testing services.
4. Provide a great candidate experience
Kara Bradford, Chief Talent Officer, Viridian Staffing
The cannabis industry is still a very small community. If you don’t provide a positive, professional candidate experience during the interview process, not only might you miss out on that candidate but you may miss out on other great candidates due to negative word of mouth, blogs, or social media. If you are less experienced in this area, I suggest engaging the advice of a seasoned HR or staffing professional to help in development of your organization’s candidate experience.
*Please note that while she is an HR Professional, Kara Bradford is not an attorney. Any recommendations in this article are not to be construed as legal advice. For legal advice, you should consult your attorney.
Kara Bradford, MBA, is Co-Founder and Chief Talent Officer of Viridian Staffing. She has been an HR professional, specializing in Talent Acquisition, Workforce Planning, Employer Branding, Compliance, and Organizational Design for over 14 years. Her career has spanned multiple Fortune 100 companies in a wide variety of industries. Kara has an MBA in Human Resources & Organizational Behavior and is PRC, CIR, and CSSR Certified. She also sits on the Board of a Global Recruiting organization. Kara has spoken and is slated to speak at several National conferences this year in both the Cannabis and HR industries.
Are you a member of NCIA interested in contributing to our blog? We’d love to hear from you.
Mack Bush (they/them) is a freelance writer who is passionate about sharing the joys of cannabis with the world. They manage their fibromyalgia with medical marijuana, and it’s opened up new doors and improved their quality of life. They live in Grand Rapids, Michigan with their cats, Rigatoni and Jasper. Find out more about their work at mackbush.com.
If you set expectations from the beginning of the interview that you will only be discussing the individual’s work experience and how this qualifies them for the role, you set a tone that will hopefully avoid any disclosure of information that could put the organization at risk. What makes interviewing candidates in this industry more difficult than others is that many have a very personal relationship with the plant and launch into telling you the story about this relationship if you don’t initially set the tone. Why this could end up being difficult for employers is that the information a candidate may want to volunteer could potentially put you at risk. Hiring decisions should be based on an individual’s qualifications for the job and culture fit for the organization.