THE ESSENTIAL ISSUE

Essential

For those whose lives are impacted by the plant, it can be a matter of the quality of life, and even the difference between life and death.

Shortly after the COVID crisis careened into our lives like a flaming truck packed with irradiated skunk carcasses, something happened that no one could have predicted: Our fearful leaders declared the Cannabis industry essential to the survival of our society. Essential. That word carries weight. It shoulders everything it touches with necessary gravity.

But what does it mean to be essential? And why does the Cannabis community – until recent years the green-clad parolee at the family dinner table – suddenly merit the classification from the same governmental bodies that once sought to destroy it?

Let’s start with easily measurable metrics.

In 2020, the estimated employment statistic for the adult-use Cannabis industry neared 300,000, according to a July report by MJ Biz Daily. That’s up from 211,000 in 2019. That same report models those stats to hit more than half a million legally employed, tax-paying workers in the Cannabis sector by 2024.

It’s a staggering figure, when you consider it only accounts for legal-market states, and doesn’t take into account employment in the unregulated Cannabis market, which is exponentially greater, but much harder to track. That’s a lot of bills paid and people fed – something this country needs, desperately.

For more easily identifiable proof of the indispensability of indica, look at the money. In its first year of adult-use, Cannabis hit $1billion in combined sales in Illinois, according to figures from the Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation. And that’s on a base of only 82 licensed dispensaries.

If that seems like a huge number, look at California during the same timespan. The state clocked more than $1 billion in Cannabis tax revenue alone, according to the California Department of Tax and Fee Administration, from total sales estimated to exceed $5 billion. That’s a lot of cabbage.

But the concept of essentialism goes beyond mere money.

For those whose lives are impacted by the plant, it can be a matter of the quality of life, and even the difference between life and death. In the following pages, we explore the concept of Cannabis essentialism by taking a close look at fine details in the fabric of the grand tapestry.

We speak with a teenage racecar driver and NASCAR hopeful from Maryland whose life was literally saved by Cannabis, and who pushed for legislation that improved the lives of patients all over his home state. We share the stories of individuals and families pulling up stakes and moving across the country for the promise of a career and a paycheck in the legal market.

We explore the past, present and future of public consumption and the concept of cannabinoids as medicine.

In this, our first Essential Issue, we attempt to identify and define some of the ways in which Cannabis has become indispensable in all of our lives.