The Top 5 Things You Should Know About the Cannabis Industry

1. Stop comparing cannabis industry to Big Alcohol, Big Tobacco, and Big Pharma. Let’s just get one thing straight: cannabis is less harmful than alcohol, tobacco, and pharmaceuticals combined. Don’t believe me? Read this. And this. And when you’re done, you can read this. If you’re still not convinced, then I challenge you to find some evidence – ANY evidence – that says cannabis is more dangerous than alcohol or prescription drugs. Not only is cannabis less harmful than alcohol, prescription drugs, and virtually any illicit drug known, but it’s also been proven – yes, proven – to have medicinal properties, which completely contradicts its schedule 1. The point is cannabis offers more promise than alcohol, tobacco, and most pharmaceuticals, and we need to stop buying into the anti-cannabis propaganda that’s been circulating for nearly a century.
2. New slang. It’s not pot, weed, herb, ganja, dope, or fire – it’s cannabis, and with good reason. The slang terms used for cannabis are usually associated with the stereotypical ‘stoner’ persona, which has proven to be a huge hurdle for legalization efforts over the years. We refer to it as ‘cannabis’ because it offers much more than it’s psychoactive properties. The Latinate, scientific name is more appropriate since it encompasses all of the plant’s benefits. I should also add that beyond the clichéd stoner terms, many industry professionals are also against using the term “marijuana” since it has some negative racial connotations, and has been used to perpetuate the stigma of cannabis since the 1930’s.
3. The cannabis industry is growing rapidly. From 2013 to 2014, the cannabis industry grew by 74 percent, and annual retail sales increased from $1.5 billion to $1.7 billion. In the next 3 years the industry is estimated to be worth a whopping $30 billion. That’s some serious growth, especially considering the taboo nature of the industry. In fact, many advertising platforms, including Google AdWords, Bing Ads, Facebook, and Twitter, all prohibit cannabis-related content. So even without the help of these advertising juggernauts, the industry as a whole has made some really great progress through non-paid channels, such as SEO, organic social media marketing, and niche ad platforms, like HighThere and MassRoots. As more states continue to legalize medical and recreational cannabis sales, we’ll hopefully see some of these paid platforms soften their attitudes towards cannabis.
4. “No, we don’t sell seeds.” One term you’ll see thrown around a lot in the cannabis industry is ‘seed-to-sale.’ Seed-to-sale does not mean “seeds FOR sale.”  Seed-to-sale refers to the traceability of cannabis from cultivation (seed) to dispensary or processor (sale). Seed-to-sale is essentially a tracking system designed to help cannabis professionals manage three core pillars of business:  government compliance, inventory, and finally point-of-sale. Typically plants are marked with low tech bar codes or unreliable RFID chips and then manually tracked throughout their entire journey. While this helps businesses keep track of what’s being grown, processed, and sold, it is labor intensive.  It does allow government agencies to monitor cannabis-related transactions, but arguably, it needs a technology upgrade.  Most Seed-to-sale companies are basically just software companies working in the greatest industry ever.  GeoShepard is an IoT company helping our clients excel in the greatest industry ever.  That was a little biased, but whatever.
5. We’re not lazy.  This may come as a shock to some, but most of us aren’t working out of our mom’s basement. We don’t sit around and take bong rips all day. In fact, most of us don’t use at all.  We don’t quote ‘stoner movies’ like How High and Half Baked (okay, we might do that last part, but just a little). We take our careers very seriously. We wear suits. We have board meetings. We focus on real-world business stuff, like ROI, attrition, cost per acquisition, and lead generation.  But mostly we take care of our customers.  Part of what makes our jobs so exciting is that we’re lucky enough to be a part of an industry that really hasn’t even begun to take shape. Most of the companies I’ve come across in this industry are boot-strapped startups, working on shoestring budgets, with only a handful of employees that wear a zillion different hats.

with help from Brandon Seymour