Honoring Female Pioneers in Cannabis
City of Los Angeles Department of Cannabis Regulation
Supporting economic opportunity and enforcing safety standards in Los Angeles' legal cannabis market.
Happy Women’s History Month! To celebrate the contributions of women to history and society as a whole, DCR highlights here female cannabis pioneers of the past and present that’ve helped advance access to legal cannabis.?
Mary Jane Rathbun
Mary Jane Rathbun was an influential American medical cannabis rights advocate that played a key role in legalizing cannabis for medicinal use in California. Specifically, she lobbied for the passage of San Francisco’s Proposition P – a resolution declaring the city’s support of medical cannabis – and soon after, California’s Proposition 215, legalizing medical cannabis throughout the state and providing a framework for the rest of the country. During her years of activism, Rathbun was arrested three times, on each occasion bringing more attention to the medical cannabis movement. Along with her reputation as a cannabis advocate, Rathbun was also known as a friend to the gay community during the AIDS crisis and gained the nickname “Brownie Mary” due to regularly baking and distributing cannabis brownies to AIDS patients.?
Wanda James
One of present day’s leading cannabis advocates, Wanda James has made an impact in the business and political worlds of cannabis. In 2009, she and her husband became the first Black licensees in the United States to own a cannabis edibles company, a grow operation, and a dispensary. James also served on Colorado’s Amendment 64 Task Force Work Group, legislation that helped end cannabis prohibition in Colorado, and effectively helped create the legal recreational market. Before stepping into her current role as an elected member of the University of Colorado’s Board of Regents, she ran her own marketing and consulting firm – Cannabis Global Initiative – that specialized in diversity development and regulatory frameworks surrounding the business development of cannabis. A prominent and widely recognized political activist, James is a fierce advocate of social equity and justice in the cannabis industry and has been featured on Pod Save America and Netflix, and profiled in Fast Company, The New York Times, Cannabis Business Times, and more. A few of her accolades include: