The women of weed
From soccer moms to marijuana mavens: the American women breaking the stoner image.
The stereotype of a wasted, layabout cannabis-smoker is a pervasive one in the UK. It was the same in the US until recently when a steady stream of women using the drug started to come out of the woodwork.
Despite being one of the 1.1 million Americans using cannabis for medical treatment in 2014, Cheryl Shuman said the stigma of lazy stoners and hot-boxed university bedsits still lingered. ‘When I first came out of the closet I was embarrassed. I didn’t want to be associated with the image that marijuana had. I was a soccer mom with two kids,’ she says.
Female influence
‘It’s about normalising the plant through awareness and effectivebranding.’ For Shuman, this looks like sipping on a cold- pressed marijuana leaf, kale and wheatgrass smoothie before she heads to downtown LA to run her PR and marketing firm that specialises in the cannabis sector.
Stepping out of the cannabis closet wasn’t easy for a businesswoman who already had a large public profile. But now Shuman is so synonymous with weed she’s even described as the ‘marijuana Martha Stewart’. She’s part of a wave of ambitious women playing active and public roles in the American cannabis industry.
‘Moms for Marijuana’
The clout of respectable, middle-class women, and the seemingly jarring sight of them at the epicentre of an emerging cannabis industry, appears to have switched society’s attitudes and perceptions.
It’s a switch Shuman is actively working to perpetuate. She set up ‘Moms for Marijuana’, a support network for mothers who use the drug.
Meanwhile, in March last year, a young mother from Colorado with a high-flying job in corporate-event planning was seen ‘vaping’ (inhaling cannabis through a vaporiser) on CNBC and promptly fired.
It was a fate-sealing moment for Amy Dannemiller, who has adopted the alter ego ‘Jane West’ for her career in the cannabis industry. She now runs catering company Edible Events Co full-time, providing cannabis-laced canapés and cocktails for high-end events.
Cannabis edibles
Dannemiller also set up her own event, Women Grow, which regularly packs 400 women who run cannabis businesses into an auditorium.
One of those women is Julie Berliner of Sweet Grass Kitchen. Her cannabis edibles look more like gluten-free treats lining the tills at an upmarket deli than products sold at weed dispensaries in Colorado.
Berliner built her first kitchen in a 200-square-foot race-car trailer; she put it on wheels so she could drive off to a new state if there was ever a change in law. By April 2015, Berliner was selling 10,000 units of single-serving edibles per month.
Sceptical consumers
Berliner believes that health-conscious, discerning and cautious consumers who are averse to smoking are becoming increasingly open to the idea of buying edible cannabis.
She is just one of hundreds of women attempting to build weed businesses that appeal to sceptical and unlikely cannabis consumers — whether they be men or women.
