After the state of Oregon legalized recreational marijuana last month, the Oregon's Health Authority (via Zero Hedge) reports that there are now more retail marijuana shops than Starbucks hops or McDonald's stores existing in the region.
Zero Hedge, in its report, said that the marijuana industry in the state of Oregon is growing much faster than in Colorado or in Washington. When medical marijuana was legalized in Oregon (but before recreational pot was legalized), a total of 281 marijuana businesses opened and classified as medical dispensaries. These stores, immediately after the recreational marijuana was legalized in the same state, reclassified themselves as retail shops.
The number of marijuana retail shops in Oregon have ballooned such that it already have outnumbered the number of Starbucks or McDonalds store in the state. Starbucks only has 248 existing stores in Oregon while McDonalds have 205 locations. This shows that marijuana is quickly becoming an important part of the economy and pop culture.
The report also noted that the growing marijuana industry appears to be not only a lucrative industry but also a gender-equal industry. As highlighted, there are more female executives in the marijuana industry compared to any other industry.
"Cannabis businesses that actively foster an environment where the contributions of both genders are equally valued will without a doubt have more success attracting and retaining the talent that will both set the company apart from competitors and position it to become a market maker and industry leader," Marijuana Business Daily previously said in its report.
"The results reveal that women are more likely to hold executive titles in every major sector of the cannabis industry than in the general workforce at large. This indicates that women have more opportunities to climb the ladder in the marijuana industry and are making quicker progress toward those goals than females in all other industries as a whole in the U.S.," the report added.
