Mar. 18—HUNTINGTON — Chris Visco knows first-hand the miraculous benefits of cannibus, but not just because she’s CEO of TerraLeaf, a medical marijuana dispensary business with an outlet in West Virginia and licenses in other states.
The Philadelphia native opened a dispensary in February 2018, and met with doubters.
“When I decided to apply for licenses, I reached out to my attorney, a man, and my license writer, a man, all essentially said, ‘Oh, little girl, this isn’t for you. You’re going to get hurt, you’re going to go bankrupt,’” she said. “Not only did I get my license, I got the highest score on the license application in a male-dominated publicly traded space.” She was the first woman to receive a license for a medical marijuana dispensary in Pennsylvania.
Sexism at work
She said some growers didn’t want to do business with her, either, because of her gender.
“I sold a company to a man and when I became upset with their unethical business practices, he told me to calm down and get my hair and nails done, and I was bald with cancer at the time,” Visco said.
Her diagnosis with stage two breast cancer came in January 2020.
“I already knew how many people