Making my way in

“Must have a year’s worth of experience in the cannabis industry”. Sheesh. How to get experience when no one wants to hire you unless you have experience? 

The Green Rush. Most of all it has been a waiting game. As with all big deal rushes it is always falls on the ones who arrive late in the game to pay big bucks for the supplies to mine the gold. The first ones in call the shots, set up shop, claim the big deal titles for themselves. Saw that at the Vangst job fair a few weeks back. Regardless of your levels of experience in those other worlds of commerce unless you were there grubbing it out as a grower, a medical clerk or a dealer of some sort, it didn't matter much. Get in line, son, there's lot of folks behind you who want in, who are willing to trade off those high salaries and fancy job descriptions just to get a foot in the door, to sell a bit of weed, just to get the clock started.

It was a shocker to see what a game it was, but in the end, not very surprising. You could smell the money. Some of the folks behind those tables didn’t even appear to be very sophisticated but that didn't matter, they were here first. I sometimes feel that the weight of those ten dollar cans of beans and two-hundred-dollar pick axes are a bit too much to bear. But like all those prospectors of old, I will take up the challenge and mine that ore, bust up those rocks. Who knows when my time will come? Who knows when that vein of fool’s gold will yield pay dirt?

I make time pass by being a good researcher. I while away time on the road, make the miles pass doing dispensary crawls. Talking with budtenders and buyers, looking at all the products on hand, seeing how owners have their showrooms set up, all of it helps me see what the state of cannabis is here in the state of Colorado. While I wait for something to happen I read The Cannabist, Marijuana Business Daily. THC magazine. I always pick up fliers and local rags from the lobbies of the dispensaries to see who is selling mota around town, to find out where the bargains are. The Rooster. Westword. The Denver Post. I read the local news to make sure that I keep up with the politics of the state as it applies to the politics of the land. I sometimes vacillate whenever I hear Sessions rattling his drug war sword but then I look around me, see that weed is not making a negative impact on my community or my life and continue my quest to make something happen. Something will happen, indeed.

To tell the truth I was offered a job with an edibles firm but I had to turn it down. Wana Brands. Delivery, warehouse. A foot in the door. A job to get the meter running, to rack up the time that will make that “one year’s experience” thing go away. But I live 50 miles out from that warehouse, drive an old Buick. The gas would have killed the wage. What a thing, all the folks who work with the people who are coming in the door to buy that weed make peanuts. The old adage, the ones who touch the product don’t make the bucks, certainly applies to cannabis. But I knew that already. Too many months of study clued me into that. 12 bucks is not a living wage, not even with tips, but that's what we are lining up at the door for.

But I am still game, regardless. I am now considering a similar job with a better firm, with a slightly better wage. Have an interview all set up for next week with The Farm in Boulder. Still fifty miles, still driving the grandpa car. Does working for a better business appeal to my vanity? Does a bit more bucks make the sting of the drive go away? You bet. So does a 40 percent discount on products in-house and employer paid health care. Can’t dismiss health care. What I am seeing is that my altruistic, romantic ways of looking at the industry are taking a side chair for the moment. I am looking at the industry as that, an industry. I am not looking at it through purple haze colored glasses, but rather through the eyes of man who still believes in the transformative powers of cannabis but who also knows that he has to make a living.

Next week I may be able to sip once again on my Magic Flight Launch Box again, free from the worries of pee tests. I may finally be able to do my tinctures, to eat a bit of edible. So much investment, so much product, so little time! To partake in the joys of working in the cannabis field is what I have been striving for. Who knows where it will lead. As my partner says to me, do this, either get on with it, do something great or get it out of your system. My years of toiling the fields of information have prepared me for this. For entry level work. For the joys of sharing the good news of cannabis.

Salud!