Editor's note: This article has been reviewed and updated for accuracy in 2026. Sales of legal marijuana in the United States has been growing at a pace that the industry wasn’t expecting. The global legal cannabis market is expected to exceed $70.6 billion dollars by 2028 with North America driving a whopping 79.6% of the market's total value in 2020 we can expect that to continue to increase as more and more states legalize and federal opinions start to warm to the idea of federal legalization. The addition of California in 2018 to the group of states where recreational cannabis usage has been legalized is one major reason for the growth in sales. In fact, just the medical marijuana business in California was on par with the combined total business of Colorado, Oregon and Washington. Birth of the Canna-Tech Industry Besides generating unprecedented volume of sales, this industry is also creating thousands of jobs. In 2017, the industry employed over 121,000 people. It’s true that the majority of these are low wage jobs, with bud trimmers making anywhere between $8 and $12 per hour and budtenders on average making about $14 per hour giver or take depending on the state (*tips not included). However, these are actual jobs and not jobs on paper and the number is expected to rise to about 300,000 by 2020-21. As the legal cannabis industry continues to grow, the <a href=https://www.forbes.com/sites/bencurren/2018/08/23/how-tech-will-drive-the-next-stage-of-cannabis-regulation/#7ee4e5e810e3 target=_blank rel=noo