Women Take the Reins at the Women Grow Leadership Summit 2016

Thanks to the prolonged cannabis-prohibition in America, many negative stereotypes of cannabis users have emerged. The lazy stoner, the dropout, the pothead and others are often how cannabis consumers are portrayed in film and television.  They are also almost always male. Today, as cannabis becomes more of a major player in the legitimate worlds of business and medicine, new stereotypes are emerging. The new face of cannabis is the entrepreneur, the healer, the patient—and these figures are just as likely to be female. In fact, the female cannabis advocate successfully pioneers in two realms—she continues to make progress in the worlds of business and medicine for women, while also legitimatizing a new and previously demonized industry. There needs to be a place for women like this to gather, and that place is the organization known as Women Grow.

Women Grow is an organization of like-minded women who are advocates for the next generation of cannabis leaders. This year’s Women Grow Leadership Summit was a great place for women to band together, talk about the burgeoning industry and discuss ways to close the gender gap within the cannabis community.

“The power of all of our chapters nationwide coming together for the summit was immeasurable,” Jane West, co-founder of Women Grow, told Culture. “’You can’t be what you can’t see, and now the next generation has a clearer sense of the opportunities available to them. The industry will never be this small again; the connections that were made here this week just further strengthen our foundation.”

The conference was held in Denver, at the Curtis Hotel downtown, from February 3-5. Each day offered new enlightening panels and discussions.

Thursday kicked off with lightning talks, a round-table way for ticketholders to hear the views of many different women within the industry. The keynote speaker during this event was Melissa Etheredge, who spoke about the cannabis paradigm.

“The lightning round talks were the perfect way to feature so many talented women,” West stated.

Friday featured panels on timely issues for the cannabis community. They focused on female issues, such as getting funding for women’s businesses and creating female cannabis brands. They also addressed general issues, like growing sales, dealing with negativity and empowering the changing industry. One of the more interesting and in-depth panels dealt with cannabis treatments for chronic illness and end-of-life care. It tackled tough issues, like how to tell if a patient wants to use cannabis to cure their illness or just to help with appetite and sleep once the fight for life is over.

Not only were the messages in the panels important here, this event went beyond basic networking. In addition to the connections made between women (and men), friendships were forged that will grow into better business relationships. Not because women are more likely to be friendlier than men, but because the spirit of comradery in this burgeoning industry is so strong that people are hungry to connect. This is sure to be the start of many more great gatherings in the name of feminism and cannabis, and the beginning of many great partnerships for this new community.