Cannabis CEOs Cut Jobs, Raise Prices, and Call It ‘Operational Discipline'
UNITED STATES, 2025 — In a stunning show of late-capitalist logic, the U.S. cannabis industry closed out 2024 with $30.1 billion in legal retail sales—a record-breaking high—while simultaneously laying off over 15,000 full-time workers, including cultivators, budtenders, compliance staff, and anyone else who actually knows what the fuck they’re doing.
This glorious contradiction has been spun by executives and analysts alike as “a sign of maturing operational discipline,” which is corporate lingo for “we figured out how to make money without paying people.”
“It’s not a contraction—it’s a pivot to scalable efficiency,” said an MSO board member while sipping a $17 matcha latte and reviewing a bonus package labeled ‘Q4 Cost-Cut Hero Award.’
THE NUMBERS:
Let’s talk stats.
Industry sales grew 4.5% year-over-year.
Job losses totaled 15,443 full-time positions—a 3.4% drop from 2023.
Arizona led the purge, cutting over 50% of its cannabis workforce in under a year.
Illinois dumped 25% of its workers while still maintaining some of the highest weed prices in the country. One Illinois customer told Boof du Jour, “It’s $70 for eighths that taste like hay and regret. The guy who used to actually know product got replaced by a screen that told me to try ‘Wedding Cake’ for anxiety. I was buying RSO.”
MSO STRATEGY: FIRE FIRST, BRAND LATER
Big players like Curaleaf, Ayr Wellness, and Verano have all either downsized, automated, or restructured staff over the past 12 months—often while expanding into new markets, opening flagship stores, and holding investor webinars bragging about EBITDA “momentum.”
These same companies have mastered the art of burning out staff at scale, replacing experience with compliance-training PDFs and middle managers who couldn’t pass a terpene quiz with a gun to their head.
“Our workforce is leaner, more agile, and fully aligned with shareholder value,” said one CEO whose LinkedIn profile says he spent 15 years in beverage marketing before “pivoting into cannabis.”Translation: he’s never trimmed a fucking leaf in his life.
BOOF INDEX — CORPORATE CANNABIS JOB SLASH RANKINGS
Executive Pay vs. Budtender Wages: +840% delta
Product Quality Per Employee Fired: Down 13%, possibly moldy
Average Store Labor Coverage: 1.5 humans and a playlist
Likelihood of C-suite Knowing What “RSO” Is: Effectively zero
Projected Layoffs in 2025 While Revenue Grows: 11,000+
HOW THE GRIFT WORKS:
Here’s the move:
Secure license in “limited market” state.
Hire locals, lean on equity optics, take press photos.
Raise money from finance bros who say “420 blaze it” on earnings calls.
Fire experienced staff, replace with kiosk ordering and Instagrammed brick walls.
Blame high taxes, “soft demand,” or the illicit market for every internal failure.
Repeat until you can exit via SPAC, bankruptcy, or creative accounting.
WHAT HAPPENED TO “GREEN JOBS”?
Turns out the "green rush" was just “gig economy 2.0 with lanyards.” Cultivators are now temp workers. Budtenders get paid in store credit. Trimmers are gone—machines do that now, badly.
Meanwhile, the people who turned cannabis into a cultural movement—legacy operators, educators, healers, and craft growers—are either broke, arrested, or consulting part-time for MSOs who refuse to learn the difference between indica and inert biomass. “It’s not about cannabis anymore,” said one former dispensary manager in Arizona. “It’s about logistics. We’re Amazon with weed. Except slower, dumber, and way more expensive.”
FINAL RECOMMENDATION:
Short corporate weed. Long fucking sense.
Boof du Jour recommends betting against the cannabis industry’s current labor model and for any operator who still knows their product, hires like it matters, and gives a shit about something other than their next investor round.
If you’re an MSO exec reading this, good luck explaining to your next customer why the only person working the floor is also stocking shelves, running compliance logs, and managing the Instagram.
You can’t cut your way to culture, motherfucker.