When Michael plus I were mere philosophy students in undergraduate school, all of us had lofty ambitions.
While I toyed with the method of just being an academic for the rest of my life, I realized this wasn’t going to lead to financial security or supply me a comforting safety net adore I could with a weird work.
Michael on the other hand was dead set on laboring in the cannabis industry. At the time our country’s cannabis industry was isolated to a handful of states that had medical marijuana laws allowing for state-approved physicians to write cannabis recommendations for their patients. By the time all of us graduated college, three states had swiftly legalized cannabis for recreational use. It was an exciting time to say the least. Michael moved to 1 of these states plus started at the bottom of the food chain trimming plants for retail cannabis dispensaries. He worked his way up to be 1 of the heads of cultivation at a pressing cannabis corporation before moving to Chicago last year to be the full head of cultivation at 1 of IL’s biggest cannabis companies. Chicago is trying to cement itself as the weed capital of the midwest with its ambitious opening of over nearly 20 cannabis dispensaries in the metropolitan section alone, with dozens of others in the nearby suburban towns. The corporation where Michael works has its corporate headquarters plus growing operations in West Town. One of their biggest cannabis competitors has their headquarters in River North to the east. Needless to say, there will particularly be countless more cannabis stores opening in the Chicago section in the coming years, let alone within the next decade.