Women in cannabis have played many roles over the years: healers and caregivers, activists who pushed for medical access, researchers, and founders and executives in today's legal market. Their part in the story is easy to miss, and it's tangled up with legends that don't hold up to scrutiny. Here's a sourced look at the history, the modern women in the cannabis industry, what leadership data shows and the networks helping women lead.
Why women's role in cannabis is often overlooked
Popular cannabis history tends to center on growers, smugglers, lawmakers and court cases. Women's contributions often happened in places that left fewer records: home remedies, caregiving, nursing and volunteer networks. Those are hard to trace decades later.
Prohibition made the problem worse. For most of the 20th century, cannabis activity in the United States was illegal, so the people involved had every reason not to write things down. Patients and caregivers who shared cannabis quietly rarely left a paper trail, and their stories surface mostly through arrest records, newspaper coverage or the archives of activists who later went public.
When records are thin, legends fill the gaps. A few viral stories get repeated across lists and social posts until they sound like settled history. That cuts both ways for women. Real contributions get overlooked, while made-up ones crowd them out.
Getting the history of women and cannabis right means sorting what can be documented from what can't, and giving credit where the record supports it.
Ancient and medieval history: what's documented and what's legend
Cannabis has a long human history, and archaeology offers some of the clearest evidence. At the Jirzankal Cemetery in the eastern Pamir Mountains of western China, researchers found chemical traces showing that cannabis was burned in wooden braziers during funeral ceremonies about 2,500 years ago. The authors also pointed out how rare such finds are: archaeological evidence for ritual cannabis use, they wrote, is limited and contentious.
If physical evidence for cannabis use itself is that scarce, evidence about who used it, including which women, is scarcer still. Online lists often credit particular ancient rulers, priestesses or whole societies with cannabis rituals. Traced back, many of those claims lead to other lists rather than to records or excavations. The same caution applies to medieval stories that circulate without citations.
A few habits help when you meet a striking claim:
- Look for a primary source. An excavation report, a period document or a named historian is a good sign.
- Check the date of the evidence. A story first written down centuries after the fact is a retelling, not a record.
- Be wary of perfect quotes. Ancient figures rarely left neat one-liners about cannabis.
- Notice who's repeating it. If every version links back to the same blog post, the trail ends there.
19th-century medicine and a famous royal rumor
In the late 1800s and early 1900s, cannabis preparations became an accepted part of Western medicine. One prominent advocate was J. Russell Reynolds, an influential British physician appointed in 1878 to Queen Victoria's household. In 1890 he summarized more than 30 years of experience with cannabis in The Lancet. He described using it for several painful conditions, including migraine and painful periods. His views reflect the medicine of his day, not today's evidence.
That royal connection spawned one of the most repeated stories in cannabis history: that Queen Victoria herself took cannabis for menstrual cramps. Historian James H. Mills, in his book Cannabis Britannica, found no direct evidence for it and called it a myth. A 2012 essay on the Points history blog reached the same conclusion after searching for a source and finding only uncited retellings.
The lesson fits the whole topic. Reynolds's writing is documented. The queen's use is not, however often it's repeated.
20th-century advocates: Brownie Mary and the medical-access movement
By the 1980s, cannabis was illegal across the country, and one of the most visible advocates for patients was a woman. Mary Jane Rathbun is remembered as Brownie Mary. Her given name happens to match a popular nickname for cannabis, one of many collected in our list of other names for marijuana.
According to the San Francisco Public Library, which holds a collection of her papers, Rathbun moved to San Francisco from Minnesota in the late 1940s. She sold cannabis brownies in her Castro neighborhood and was arrested twice in the city. Afterward she volunteered with the Shanti Project, which launched her AIDS activism, and brought her brownies to San Francisco General Hospital's Ward 86 clinic for people with AIDS. A third arrest, in Sonoma County in 1992, ended with the charges dropped.
Her best-known years overlapped with two milestones: San Francisco's 1991 Proposition P, which urged state lawmakers to legalize medical use, and California's Proposition 215, the 1996 Compassionate Use Act. She co-wrote a book with activist Dennis Peron, and in 1997 the two were named grand marshals of the San Francisco Pride parade. She died in 1999, and Mayor Willie L. Brown proclaimed May 2 of that year Brownie Mary Day. Women cannabis advocates like her helped turn patient access into a public cause, years before Michigan voters approved a medical marijuana law in 2008.
Women founders and executives in the legal industry
Legalization opened doors that didn't exist before. In Michigan, voters approved medical marijuana in 2008 and adult use in 2018, and a licensed industry grew up around cultivation, processing, testing labs, retail, compliance, software and marketing. The state ended 2025 with more than 800 licensed retailers alone.
Female cannabis entrepreneurs and executives now work throughout that industry. Women are a big part of the customer base too: in Gallup's 2026 poll, women were slightly more likely than men to say they use edibles. The business side brings its own hurdles. Ownership and executive roles are different measures, and as the next section shows, women's shares of the two haven't moved together.
If you'd like to support women-owned cannabis brands, look for ownership details on a brand's own website and in its press materials, and check that the products are licensed and lab-tested. For a fuller timeline of the movement, see our feature on the women who shaped cannabis.
Leadership data: the share of women executives over time
The best-known figures come from MJBizDaily, a cannabis trade publication that surveys people in the industry. Its results have swung widely from one survey to the next:
| Survey year | Women's share of cannabis executive roles |
|---|---|
| 2019 | 36.8% |
| 2021 | 22.1% |
| 2023 | 39% |
In 2021, the 22.1% figure fell below the 29.8% average reported for U.S. businesses overall. By 2023 the share had rebounded to 39%, but that survey drew only about 220 responses. The same 2023 survey found women's share of business ownership at about 16%, down six points from the year before.
Read these numbers as a rough picture rather than a precise count. The surveys are small and depend on who chooses to answer, which may explain some of the swings. The broader point holds: women's share of cannabis leadership has been substantial but unsteady, and ownership lags behind.
Advocacy groups and mentorship networks
Networks have formed to help women enter the industry and move up in it. One example is Supernova Women, started in 2015 by Amber Senter, Andrea Unsworth, Nina Parks and Tsion "Sunshine" Lencho, women of color working in Oakland, California's legal cannabis industry. According to a 2017 NPR report, the group offers free educational seminars for locals interested in the cannabis business. It also fosters a space for hard conversations, including what it feels like to be the only person of color in the room.
Groups like this tend to offer three things: education on licensing and business basics, mentors who've already done the work, and a community to compare notes with. Women cannabis advocates also work through broader organizations on legalization, patient access and equity. Our guides to cannabis advocacy organizations and social equity in cannabis point to more.
If you're looking for a mentor, start local. Industry events, business associations and alumni of cannabis training programs are good places to meet people a few steps ahead of you.
What's next for women in cannabis
A few threads are worth watching:
- Ownership. Executive roles rebounded in recent surveys, but ownership is the gap to watch. Owning a business, not just running one, is what builds lasting wealth and influence in an industry.
- Better data. Most of what we know comes from small, voluntary surveys. Larger and more regular counts would show whether leadership gains hold up from year to year.
- Research. Women scientists and clinicians study cannabis from pharmacology to public health, and better evidence serves patients and consumers alike.
- Second chances. If an old conviction stands between you and a job in the industry, our guide to Michigan marijuana expungement is a good place to start.
- Careers. Curious about working in cannabis yourself? High Society's careers page lists the store roles it hires for, from budtender to receptionist.
The story of women in cannabis is still being written, in labs, in statehouses, behind store counters and in boardrooms. Keeping it accurate is part of giving it the credit it deserves. 21+ only. Please consume responsibly.
