Education

HIGHER Education: Now You Can Go To College Just To Study Pot

Emma Colton Deputy Editor
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A college in Massachusetts is getting ready to blaze up, open its hemp-covered gates and start teaching the business and benefits of using and selling weed.

The Northeastern Institute of Cannabis is looking at student applications for acceptance, and is slated to begin the fall semester classes studying the pot industry this August, according to CNN Money.

Founded by longtime weed activist Mickey Martin, the cannabis aficionado started the 12-course program because pot knowledge goes far beyond just lighting a blunt and enjoying a high. Today, selling weed is a business that reaches everyone from sketchy small time drug dealers to doctors writing prescriptions.

“This is one of the largest growth industries in America, and it’s not just stoners and people who like weed anymore — it’s a business,” Martin told CNN Money. “We’re targeting your basic worker, someone who wants to go to a dispensary and apply for a job, because these places want people who are trained.”

After Martin’s medical marijuana food shop was raided by the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), the weed enthusiast penned a book called “Medical Marijuana 101” and decided to spread his drug knowledge and become a professor.

Martin has yet to get a license that would allow the weed college to become an official trade school, but is confident Massachusetts — a relatively uncharted state when it comes to dealing with marijuana — will issue it before August classes begin.

“You have new [marijuana] industries starting up in states all across New England but you have a virtually untrained workplace,” said Martin. “Most [training programs] are in Colorado and California, but for someone to travel that far to get trained is just not realistic.”

According to the article, in order to enroll in the school, students must hold a GED or high school diploma and will earn a “Cannabis industry certification” if they complete the 12-course curriculum that consists of classes like the science and history of the weed industry, or growing techniques. (RELATED: CU Boulder Students Arrested For Taking Pot Brownies To Food Event)

Classes will be held at night and on weekends to fit the schedules of people with full-time jobs, and students won’t receive federal financial aid because, well, weed is still illegal no matter how many classes are created to study the drug. According to the article, students won’t be directly working with marijuana.

“The federal interference into the industry at this point is still cumbersome,” Martin said. “It’s been quite a journey.”