'I don’t plan on ever going back': Why industry pros are leaving cannabis

Chris LaPorte racked up personal debt trying to usher in a new era of consumption venues in Las Vegas. Retail burnout led Lilach Mazor Power to seek an exit in Arizona. After years in national sales roles, Nigel Despinasse’s career hit a brick wall.

These first movers and countless others are part of a growing contingent of longtime industry pros leaving the cannabis sector. There’s a host of reasons for the exodus, but new business opportunities and peace of mind are a common theme. Over a decade after legalization movements started finding their stride in the U.S., many of the industry’s top executives and advocates are moving on to less-green pastures.  

Some, like Thomas Tinsley, moved hundreds of miles to chase the dream. He relocated from San Diego to Oregon for a job in the state’s emerging cannabis market in 2014, the same year voters approved a ballot initiative paving the way.

Like many in early legalization states, he’s held all sorts of jobs, including grower, processor and delivery driver. After a seven-year stint in various sales roles and his fourth layoff, it was time for a change. 

“My mental health was suffering and so was my bank account,” he told Cultivated. 

He bemoaned the unprofessionalism and lack of sales training in the work place, and the endless double duties of the job, which could require him to pitch in on accounts receivables or payables one day and lead inventory management the next. He said he felt underpaid and underappreciated, and a pathway for career advancement never materialized.

In January he started a new sales role at one of the nation’s largest uniform supply and services providers.

“The pay is great, tons of perks. And there are pathways to success,” he said. “I'm completely happy and I don't plan on ever going back into the industry.”

Nearly all his former Oregon employers are out of business today. 

The workforce in mature markets like Oregon, Illinois and Colorado are shrinking, fueling a nationwide employment decline for the first time in the emerging sector.

According to national staffing firm Vangst, the U.S. cannabis industry in 2024 employed about 425,000 full-time positions, down 3.4% from 2023. But the 2025 report may show an uptick in national employment, given growth in the New York and New Jersey markets.

Vangst did not respond to inquiries for this story and other industry staffing firms declined to discuss the potential impact of losing longtime workers and executives to other industries. 

LaPorte has been a leader advancing consumption venue laws, policies and hospitality in Las Vegas since 2017 when he first introduced the concept to city lawmakers. His firm, Reset, consulted with Thrive Cannabis Marketplace to open the state’s first licensed consumption venue, Smoke and Mirrors, in February 2024.

The landmark project was one of several in the pipeline for Reset but ongoing regulatory hurdles, and challenges raising capital and securing real estate for license holders derailed plans.

“We just couldn't get money for these businesses,” LaPorte told Cultivated. After racking up $25,000 in debt, he shuttered Reset.

Despite lofty market expectations a few years ago and more than a dozen projects awaiting final approval, only a couple of consumption venues are operational today in Las Vegas, a reverberation of declining tourism, capital shortages and limited revenue streams, according to industry experts.

In April, Smoke and Mirrors closed. 

“I just couldn't believe that this wasn't working and put myself in a pretty precarious financial position,” said LaPorte, who recently pivoted to selling life and health insurance.

“I have a family so financial stability is priority number one. Chasing a dream is exciting, but sometimes you just have to realize the timing is not right.” 

During college Despinasse cold called and emailed hundreds of prospects before landing cultivation internships in Colorado and Rhode Island. After graduating with a business degree from Brown University, he started a harvesting and trimming service for growers in Oklahoma that bellied up.

His first sales job in the space was at Calyx Containers, followed by stints at analytics provider BDSA, retail software maker Jointly, and Beard Bros Pharms, a brand and media outlet.     

An industrywide cash crunch made sales jobs untenable and his future uncertain.  

“No one has money. It's getting drained out via taxation, regulation, you name it,” he told Cultivated. Last August he accepted a business development role at a San Francisco-based AI company rather than “trying to turn my wheels on the same thing I've been trying to do for the last seven years.”

He referred to the competing opportunities as night and day while finding camaraderie and purpose in the workplace again.

“I joined the weed industry because of the people that I could be around, and frankly, just so I could be myself,” Despinasse said. “What I ended up finding here was that people will still take me, as zany as I am.”

Power was excited to enter Arizona’s developing market in 2011 for business opportunities and a passion to improve patients’ lives.

“I got into the industry because I believe in the plant and the medicinal recreational properties, but I also believe in the beauty of creating something new,” she told Cultivated. Similar to those interviewed for this story and other first movers, she considered it a once in a lifetime opportunity.  

She exited the industry in October 2025 feeling joyless, frustrated and bored.

On a panel a few years ago, she caught herself reiterating the same retail pain points she had highlighted for years: declining prices, market saturation, insatiable demand for high THC percentages and product commoditization.

“The definition of insanity was actually me, because I kept talking about the same thing and trying to wake up the industry, and nothing changed,” she said. “I realized I want to do something else. This is not it.”

So she put out word her retail store in Mesa, Giving Tree Dispensary, was on the sales block, brokered a successful deal and walked away, no strings attached. Meanwhile, Power was tinkering with an idea to revitalize a failed brand she launched a few years ago targeting women in menopause. 

“I took a couple weeks off and it just became very clear that this is what I want to do,” she said.

She recently inked a manufacturing deal to develop federally legal, hemp-based products with terpenes, cannabinoids and functional, non-psychoactive mushrooms. Power, with renewed optimism, said they’re going to launch in March. 

“I want to bring the amazing properties of the cannabis plant to women that are struggling with perimenopause and all those symptoms,” she said. “And it's bringing back that excitement.” 

Gretchen Gailey has been lobbying for cannabis reform on Capitol Hill for more than five years and is contemplating a career change. 

She was one of the first hires in 2015 at New Frontier Data, which provides cannabis business intelligence. After a close friend was diagnosed with cancer, she became an advocate for medicinal marijuana.

“If you're dying of something, you should have access to any type of medicine you want,” she told Cultivated. “The government should not stand in the way.”

With experience in broadcast journalism and political campaigns, Gailey launched Panoptic Strategies, a Washington D.C.-based firm that specializes in media strategy, public relations and government affairs for cannabis and hemp businesses.

She’s also the president of Project Champion, a coalition of former professional athletes aiming to advance cannabis reform in statehouses and the Capitol. Gailey doesn’t expect progress on marijuana reform this year in Congress.

“Federally, I don't see cannabis moving anywhere this year,” she said.

And her outlook on state markets is also bleak with Oklahoma’s outgoing governor vowing to recriminalize medical marijuana, and ballot initiatives underway in Arizona 

 and Massachusetts aiming to prohibit non-medical cannabis sales.

Gailey’s grown tired of the fight on the Hill, in state houses and with the industry. 

“It's amazing to me that right now, I'm looking at three or four states that are looking at rolling back adult use and the industry doesn't care,” she said. “They're not paying attention. They don't think it'll ever happen, just like they thought there would be no hemp ban.”

Longtime Boston attorney and former Massachusetts regulator Shaleen Title stepped away from the industry about a year ago. 

“When I first got involved in trying to change marijuana laws, it was an urgent social issue with the ability to make a huge impact by stopping arrests,” said Title, who served as commissioner of Massachusetts’ Cannabis Control Commission from 2017 to 2020. “Now, much of the focus seems to be on lobbying for small changes to increase profits for businesses.”

So, she shifted her focus to grassroots campaigns to help parents and students navigate the complexities of AI and other Big Tech products pushed in public schools.

“There are so many ways that people who have been involved in cannabis work can use their skills to make a difference,” Title told Cultivated. “I would encourage anyone who is feeling like leaving the cannabis movement to consider a shift to mentoring and coaching people who are newer to the cannabis movement.

“That can help you to stay involved and continue to make an impact while fostering new voices and fresh perspectives -- something our movement desperately needs.”