of cannabis executives are women of color — roughly 1 percent higher than the overall national average across industries, but still a small minority. Beatty has seen and collaborated with activists working to affect change on this. But it’s not the big industry players who are taking up the cause, she adds. Instead of top-tier firms, it’s the ventures “that are smaller, the mom-and-pop companies, the ones most affected by these issues, they end up fighting.
That is, if those businesses can still compete in a marketplace transformed by possible federal legalization.drug by the U.S. government. But if federal cannabis legalization becomes the law of the land, it could quickly pave the way for the involvement of big businesses from the tech and pharmaceutical industries.
Macias adds, “What we see is the Walmart effect — big companies take up the majority of a marketplace and are able to control what medical and adult-use marijuana looks like. This is what we’re on the verge of.”