‘Not a Pot Party:’ The Marijuana Industry Grows Up

To say that the cannabis industry is absolutely booming in legal states would be a vast understatement. From festivals to conventions to conferences, the ways in which marijuana is evolving socially, culturally and in the business sector is moving at light speed and if you look away for a minute, you could miss some major developments that could change the landscape of the cannabis industry from here on out.

Each year, Marijuana Business Daily hosts MJBizCon — the world’s largest cannabis industry conference on the globe — in Las Vegas where attendance doubles every event. This November, the Las Vegas Convention Center allowed a cannabis-only event to take place on site for the first time and welcomed more than 17,000 registered attendees. And though it may seem like it’s all fun and games from the outside, this event was designed to give business owners in the industry a chance to meet like-minded professionals, figure out ways to boost their companies and learn how they can better serve the people who are responsible for their success: the consumers.

“We have, since the beginning, held MJBizCon to be a business-to-business, professional trade show,” CEO and founder of Marijuana Business Daily Cassandra Farrington shared. “This is not a party. This is a place to be doing business deals.”

Eugenio Garcia, the founder and publisher of Cannabis Now Magazine, got a chance to talk with some of the movers and shakers of the industry including people like Chris Hagedorn from Hawthorne Gardening, Jillian Nelson from Evergreen Organix, Danny Danko from High Times, Brett Roper from Medicine Man, Sean Characky from Pisos, Jeff Gray from SC Labs and Arjan Roskam, the founder of Green House Coffeeshops and Green House Seed Company. These cannabis industry insiders were able to offer up some unique and valuable insight into what’s going on behind the scenes, how the industry is advancing and expanding around the world and what’s to come — more innovation, more growth, more investments and more acceptance worldwide.

“What you’re seeing now is the ‘green rush,’ which has become the green tsunami because there’s a lot of buzz out there about cannabis,” Henry Wykowski, the lead attorney at Harborside Health Center, explained. “Everybody wants to get into cannabis.”

And, if the MJBizCon, the event bringing together industry professionals from all around the world is any indication of what lies ahead, it doesn’t seems like things will be slowing down anytime soon.

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