It started with a party.
In 2013, legal recreational cannabis arrived in Colorado and Jane West started throwing events for it. What she couldn't do was buy anything worth putting out at them.
She was 38, living in Denver, raising two children, and working as a corporate event planner after an earlier career in social work. The accessories on offer still looked exactly how you'd expect cannabis accessories to look, and none of them belonged in her home. She wasn't the only one the category had overlooked. There was an enormous group of people who enjoyed cannabis and didn't identify with that aesthetic at all.
"I didn't want to hide cannabis in a drawer, and I didn't want the products associated with it to look like the expected paraphernalia aesthetic. I believed cannabis would eventually become a normal part of people's homes and lives, and that the objects surrounding it needed to evolve too."
So she created Jane West, designing products for the way people actually lived with cannabis rather than the way the category assumed they did. That original idea still runs through the brand. When cannabis belongs in a home, the objects that come with it should feel at home there too.
What's in a name?
Jane set out to create a brand name that would be strong, classic, memorable, unmistakably feminine, and just two syllables.
She landed on Jane West.
"'Jane' has an obvious connection to cannabis, while 'West' connected to Colorado and the place where my journey in this industry began. Together, the name felt timeless, distinctly American, and bigger than any one product or category."
Today, the distinction between founder and brand is intentionally slim.
"I am Jane West. I am the brand, the designer and the CEO."
Growing something bigger.
Within a year of that first event, she co-founded Women Grow, which became a national organisation connecting women throughout the emerging cannabis industry, and one of the most visible women advocating for legalisation in the United States.
It was an unusual position to find herself in, having come to cannabis from outside the traditional industry. That outsider perspective became the point.
"I came to it as a consumer, a woman, a mother and a designer who thought the entire category could be better."
Designed to live with.
Jane designs for people who enjoy cannabis, but don't necessarily want cannabis culture to define them.
"They care about their homes. They care about design. They buy beautiful glassware, furniture, kitchenware, and objects they intend to keep. Why should the products they use for cannabis be treated differently?"
Function comes first, but utility doesn't have to look utilitarian. Each piece starts with how it will actually be used: how it feels in the hand, where it sits when it's not in use, whether it's stable, comfortable, and easy to clean. Then it has to hold its own in a room, sitting alongside the barware and ceramics and books already there. Something you reach for constantly and never feel the need to hide.
That applies whether you've been consuming for twenty years or you're opening your first dispensary purchase. Good design, as Jane puts it, shouldn't require an instruction manual or insider knowledge.
A higher design standard.
Attitudes towards cannabis have shifted enormously since 2013. Attitudes towards its objects, less so.
"There is still a strange divide where people will spend significant money on beautifully designed objects for coffee, cocktails, cooking or wine, and then accept a completely different design standard for cannabis. I have never believed cannabis deserves a lesser design language."
Shifting that has taken longer than launching any single product. It means changing what people expect these objects to be, and where they think they belong.
"My goal has never been simply to make prettier smoking accessories. I want to change the way people see, use and live with cannabis."
Jane West at Astrid Alchemy
Bringing the brand to Australia is another step towards the global cannabis lifestyle brand Jane envisioned from the beginning.
"Astrid Dispensaries has created an environment around cannabis that feels considered, sophisticated, and welcoming. That is exactly the kind of normalisation I've been working toward since 2013."
Two female-founded brands, both of which came at cannabis from outside the industry's old stereotypes, with a shared belief in thoughtful design, education, and a better consumer experience.
"I couldn't imagine a more appropriate home for Jane West's Australian launch into dispensaries."
More than a decade after Jane first asked where the cannabis products for people like her were, the answer has travelled a long way from Denver.
Jane West is now available in Australia through Astrid Alchemy.
