Illinois Women in Cannabis will host its next networking event April 8
A trade association for Illinois' medical marijuana business is seeking to ensure that women play a significant role in what the group's founders describe as “an industry too new to have a glass ceiling.”
Illinois Women in Cannabis, started in August by a lawyer and a real estate businesswoman, wants to connect female professionals and entrepreneurs to the new business opportunities created by the passage of Illinois' law legalizing marijuana for medical use in 2013. They want to push the nascent industry far from its roots in stoner culture and the illegal economy, where few women ran major commercial operations, female employees were hired based on attractiveness and advertising targeted at male customers portrayed women as sexual props.
Dina Rollman, an attorney whose practice is focused on cannabis law, watched the development of the marijuana industry in Colorado, which legalized it for recreational use in 2014. Most business owners she has dealt with there and in Illinois have been men.
