About 20% of marijuana business owners in the U.S. are women Everett CollectionMary-Louise Parker as Nancy Botwin in Showtime’s hit series “Weeds”Suburban moms selling marijuana is no longer just the plotline of the Showtime series “Weeds”. It’s a growing reality. Women are increasingly entering the marijuana market as business owners and customers, as the legal obstacles are gradually cleared and retail spaces grow in number. Women Grow, a Denver-based industry network for women in the cannabis market, estimates that about 20% of marijuana business owners in the U.S. are female. (Women-owned companies comprise about 30% of all U.S. businesses, but as the majority are nonprofit, they account for just 4% of overall business revenue, according to a 2014 report by the National Association of Women Business Owners.) In Colorado, the proportion of women in the medical marijuana patient population has grown to 35% in 2015 from 28.5% in 2009, a trend Cassandra Farrington, chief executive of Marijuana Business Daily, says extends nationwide. C. Roese RampWomen Grow co-founder Jazmin Hupp (left) “As women were seeing friends and kids they knew going through health battles, they became more open to marijuana not as a taboo, but truly as medicine,” Farrington said. As the drug is becoming more accepted as a medical norm, women are entering the recreational market as well, she said. “If you walk into most retail shops today, you see a lot less counterculture,” Farrington said. “No more big prominent babes in bikinis holding bongs in strategic places.” With more states legalizing medical and recreational marijuana, producers have been able to experiment with more sophisticated products. Twenty-three states and the District of Columbia have legalized cannabis for medical use so far, while recreational marijuana has been legalized in Washington, Oregon, Colorado, Alaska and the District of Columbia. The greater variety of THC strength and ways to ingest the drug are increasing its appeal to less-experienced customers. “As knowledge about cannabis has changed, you can get incredibly strong products and incredibly sophisticated products that aren’t as strong,” Farrington said. “Much like a woman would walk into a liquor store and buy wine instead of Everclear, that’s what’s going on on the marijuana side.” Female customers also present an opportunity for the overall marijuana market to expand.