Facing Misconceptions: Breaking into the Cannabis Industry

“You do what?”

“Well, as long as you enjoy it, that’s all that matters.”

“Oh, that’s interesting. So you basically just smoke weed all day?”

These are the types of snide, derisive comments I usually get when I tell people I work in the cannabis industry. You know, the types of comments when someone says one thing with their mouth, but they’re really thinking, “what the heck is wrong with this guy? He’s a lunatic.” It used to bother me, but it doesn't anymore. Friends, family members, professors, strangers. It doesn’t matter. Most people either look at me like I have ten heads or fight back a chuckle whenever I mention I work in cannabis. Almost like what I do is illegitimate. Like I should stop being a lazy stoner and get a real job. I believed them for a time, before I ever got started in the industry. Maybe I was headed down the wrong path. Maybe I should just call it quits and stick with the good old ABCs: accounting, banking, and consulting.

Then, I spent a year in the cannabis industry. And, goodness, am I glad I never listened to them! But, how did I get here? Let’s take a step back.

Early Budding: Getting Started in the Industry

My journey into the cannabis industry was anything but conventional. In fact, I consumed cannabis for the first time less than two years before I started working in the industry. It wasn’t even on my radar. Heck, I barely knew that the cannabis industry existed. But, once I started consuming, I knew there was something special about the plant. I’ve been an athlete my entire life. Injuries and surgeries just come with the territory of playing high-level contact sports for 12 years.

By the time I was a senior in high school, I’d broken my hand twice, my thumb twice, tore my rotator cuff, dislocated my shoulder, tore my adductor, developed tendonitis in both knees, and broke my toe a handful of times. And this was only the stuff that got diagnosed. I was in physical therapy for almost two straight years, but I could still barely sit in the car for more than a half-hour without having shooting pains in my legs and back. Not to mention, I was also battling crippling anxiety, depression, and a pretty severe eating disorder.

To keep a long story short, cannabis became a vital part of my wellness routine. Was it a silver bullet? Absolutely not. I’ve had to do a lot of internal work (both physical and mental) to get where I am today, but cannabis certainly played a large role in my journey. And I’ve seen it do similar things for other people I’m close to. Ultimately, that became the catalyst for wanting to join the industry. I knew the benefits cannabis could offer, and I wanted to share that with people who, like me, didn’t even have cannabis on their radars.

But there was a problem. I was a 20-year-old kid living in North Carolina. How the heck was I supposed to get involved in an industry that felt so out of reach?

LinkedIn: The Holy Grail of Cannabis

Once I made up my mind that the cannabis industry was where I wanted to be, I started consuming everything I could find; podcasts, books, articles. All of it. I wanted to learn as much as possible.

I also joined the North Carolina chapter of NORML, tried to get jobs at CBD shops in my area, and attended a couple of events that were 420-friendly. But then, I found the social platform called LinkedIn, and that’s where things really started to take off.

I had been pre-med in college, so I had not even heard of what LinkedIn was, let alone used it. When I first started on the platform, I began from scratch with 0 connections, 0 experience, and 0 skills listed. Over the next couple of weeks, I just played around without much luck. I hadn’t set up any networking calls, and I was no closer to working in cannabis than when I started. That’s when I stumbled across the LinkedIn cannabis community, and a whole new world of possibility opened up. Suddenly, “Budtender'' wasn't my only job option. I learned there were also roles for cultivation, processing, and even the ancillary space!

I started reaching out to everyone and anyone who would take my call. In the five months it took me to get my first internship in cannabis, I made well over a hundred networking calls. That was my first experience with the cannabis industry community. The support. The advice. The hospitality. I talked to a lot of people, from founders of multi-million-dollar companies to single-person operations struggling to get legal licenses, and they were all so welcoming. I interviewed with a lot of companies in a lot of different industries while I was in college, and never once did I feel the support that I felt from the cannabis industry. That’s how I knew I’d found my home.

Blazing Trails: The First Few Years in Review

It’s been just over a year since I started working in the cannabis industry and almost 30 months since I made my first networking call. I can confidently say that the growth I’ve experienced in this short time is five times larger than anything else I would have experienced anywhere else. But, the rose-colored glasses have faded.

There are certainly bad players in this industry. People who are greedy, deceptive, and take advantage of others. Nothing like what I experienced when I was networking. And there are also HUGE challenges and structural inequalities that need to be addressed. It’s an industry in its infancy. And the growing pains are showing.

I know I’m not alone when I say there’s no place I’d rather work. Even with the snakes, the cannabis community is still unmatched. It has to be. Competition is fierce, margins are tight, and there’s little room for error. People have to band together, and you’re seeing more and more examples of that every day.

There’s still a long way to go, for me personally and the industry as a whole, but the future looks bright. According to a 2021 Leafly report, cannabis is the fastest-growing industry in the U.S. It’s the 6th most important cash crop to the U.S. economy, and it still isn’t federally legal. And by 2030, the legal cannabis industry is expected to surpass $100 billion. To say there’s opportunity in this space is an understatement, and not just financial. Sure, the money’s there, which is important, but there’s so much more. Think of the history of this plant. The socioeconomic implications. The health and wellness benefits that could be extended to millions of people with proper research and funding.

If you’re thinking about getting into the cannabis industry, the time is now. It is in desperate need of talented individuals with a passion for the plant and community. We’re all living through history, and those who are brave enough to come out of the green closet have the opportunity to shape this industry for the better. There’s unprecedented challenges. Things you don’t see in any other industry. The level of business acumen it takes to succeed is off the charts. 

But even through all the side-eyed glances I get and long hours I put in, I know I made the right choice coming to cannabis. 

It’s the culture that brought me in. It’s the culture that makes me stay. And it’s the culture that will propel this industry to new heights.