The Cannabis Industry is Important to America
According to a report by Leafly, the legal cannabis industry in America now supports 150,000 full-time jobs.[i] The industry is also experiencing incredible growth. Since last year, the industry has also added 26,000 jobs, a 22% increase. Of these jobs, many don’t even touch a plant – you have lawyers, software developers in addition to growers, budtenders, and distributors. Washington State alone has over 26,500 jobs and itself experienced a 35% increase in jobs year over year.
Right about now you’re probably thinking, “this is great good looking and amazing blog person, so what?” Well, the so what is that the legal cannabis industry employs twice the amount of workers as the coal industry. While there has been much made of the coal miners and their jobs not many politicians have worried about the hardworking, taxpaying Americans who happen to work in one of the best industries in the world – the cannabis industry. It’s easy to forget that our 20 billion dollar industry remains under threat from anti-marijuana politicians in Congress and in our current administration. On September 30th, the head of the DEA (Chuck Rosenberg) stepped down, and who our president decides to replace him with will be vitally important for the future of marijuana policy.
As equally important is how the DEA decides to partner with the Justice Department and the US Attorney General Jeff Sessions. In 2013, it became the stance of the Justice Department that regulated recreational marijuana laws would be respected by the justice department under the Cole Memo (named after Obama administration Attorney General James M. Cole). Despite past stances, Sessions called this decision valid, suggesting that limited resources shouldn’t go to limiting the freedom of law-abiding Americans. The public was and is happy about this, as 75% of Americans would oppose such a crackdown . Meanwhile the largest state in the US has just asked the Feds to reclassify cannabis. Important things are happening to protect the cannabis industry.
The industry is booming. More and more people are supporting cannabis both at the state level and the national level. By 2020 the cannabis industry is expected to provide a quarter of a million jobs. That would mean there are more people working in cannabis than manufacturing or in the government! We in the industry love where it’s going and those who support us. We’re hoping 2018 is another banner year for the industry. Cannabis advocates are busy gathering signatures to get more cannabis issues on ballots. Above all, we would like to see the industry grow, continue to support hardworking Americans, and change lives for the better. The cannabis industry has never looked better locally and nationally and we are hoping for even better things to come. Of course, this is all thanks to you, the consumer… or as we call you: our Dreamers! Toke on you crazy Dreamers!
[i] And countless other part time jobs like… Cannabis blogger! 😉
