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Marijuana Business Daily
Why marijuana firms are paying attention as higher education expands MJ course offerings across the US
By Nick Thomas
Published September 23, 2019
Cannabis businesses are taking careful note as professional marijuana
courses and programs spring up at universities and other educational
institutions across the country.
Examples include – to name a few – Northern Michigan University, the
College of Southern Nevada, the University of Denver and Florida Gulf
Coast University, with colleges offering a huge variety of
cannabis-focused four-year undergraduate degree programs, certification
classes and even graduate degrees.
MJ businesses are watching this educational trend because:
There is a shortage of people highly knowledgeable about advanced
cannabis business, technology and legal/compliance topics, so graduates
from the programs could potentially prove ideal candidates for employee
recruitment.
As well-established universities expand offerings around marijuana
education, some industry watchers believe this could help to further
destigmatize the MJ industry – and possibly help nudge federal cannabis
reform forward.
The courses help to underline the expanding employment opportunities
within all sectors of the state-legal cannabis industry across the
country – and the world.
Higher education history lesson
Just a few years ago, little evidence existed of cannabis programs in
U.S. higher education – other than the one federally approved research
center at the University of Mississippi.
While some higher education institutions are now researching hemp due
to easing of restrictions following the 2018 U.S. Farm Bill, the
research center at Ole Miss remains the only federally approved center
of its type to actually grow marijuana and directly investigate its
properties.
This was even as the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) last month said
it was moving ahead with plans to expand marijuana research.
The future of marijuana education
Even in states where marijuana is neither medically nor recreationally legal, cannabis programs also are available.
The private Doane University in Nebraska, for example, is offering an
online program this fall covering the science, cultivation, processing
and regulation of both marijuana and hemp.
Courses are due to start there in November, and 700 people have already enrolled.
The program is dubbed “Cannabis Science and Industries: Seeds to
Needs,” and is a professional certificate program designed to meet the
demand for educated professionals across marijuana agriculture,
processing, wellness and manufacturing sectors.
It is the brainchild of organic chemistry professor Andrea Holmes who,
at the end of a sabbatical she used to found two Denver-based cannabis
companies, decided she wanted to remain an entrepreneur and also teach
about the marijuana industry.
“There is such a need for a qualified workforce but many just don’t
have the right credentials, and so there needs to be a practical
training program for direct application,” Holmes told Marijuana
Business Daily.
Local programs, global opportunity
Experts noted the fact that colleges are offering programs in states
where marijuana isn’t legally available reflects the global nature of
the industry.
Max Simon, CEO and co-founder of Ventura, California-based Green Flower
Media, likened professional cannabis opportunities to the tech industry
where students can enroll in programs in Georgia, for example, and get
jobs in California.
His firm is a cannabis education platform company that works with higher education institutions on marijuana curriculum.
“There is now training to go globally wherever the opportunities might be in different parts of the world,” he said.
The variety of fields students can focus on offers many opportunities
in an industry that is crying out for more informed, experienced and
talented people to meet growing demand, Simon added.
“There are educational opportunities in the medical sector, in
business, in horticulture and in the legal and compliance sector,” he
said.
“There is a shortage of well-trained people. We are still very much in the first inning here, but it is developing.”
Hurdles around MJ education
The University of California at Davis and its newly formed Cannabis and
Hemp Research Center is a good example of the interdisciplinary nature
of what the industry can offer.
It brings together research around possible environmental and health
impacts, applications for use, social implications and legal and public
policy.
Proof of the nascent nature of cannabis programs on campuses, however,
is that a common first reaction of college administrators to proposals
on such programs is concern it will lead to students using large
amounts of marijuana, Simon noted.
“We are still early in the mentality surrounding this plant,” he said.
Holmes at Doane University said it was a real “uphill battle” both
within the university and from outside to overcome opposition to her
program idea.
“I have spent more time at this university meeting with faculty, the
provost, human resources, to defend the program than I have actually
putting it all together,” she said.
“There has also been outside pressure telling me it will put me in a bad light, but there are also many, many supporters.”
Barrington Rutherford, senior vice president of community integration
at Chicago-based multistate operator Cresco Labs, would like society to
eventually recognize the industry as it does other well-established
ones that sponsor colleges, citing the business school at Cornell
University named after SC Johnson, the Racine, Wisconsin-based
multinational consumer goods company.
However, it may be some time before a college business school is named after a U.S. cannabis company.
Cornell itself is offering a course this fall – “Cannabis: Biology,
Society and Industry” – with a focus on history, culture,
pharmacology, breeding, horticulture and legal challenges associated
with cannabis.
“There are major corporations with longstanding relationships with schools,” Rutherford said.
“And the schools are just responding to society.”
Community college opportunities
Both Cresco and Green Flower also stressed the importance of working
closely not just with higher tier institutions, but also at the
community college level where cannabis-focused programs are being
developed as well.
The community college focus, particularly in locations with large
minority populations, is part of Cresco’s Social Equity &
Educational Development (SEED) program, which Rutherford heads.
“You bring people in and give them training to get jobs that can be on-ramps into the industry,” he said.
“Those can be living-wage jobs as well as careers in the corporate office. There really are things everyone can do.”
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