With the steady legalization of marijuana, more and more people are getting into the pot business. Dr. Dre and Xzibit have their own weed company, Brass Knuckles, Lil Pump represents the new weed company, Smoke Unhappy, and ofcourse, who can forget the industries favorite stoners, Seth Rogen and Snoop Dogg, both of whom have their own companies: Rogen with his recently launched Houseplant, and Snoop with his widely successful Casa Verde Capital. With new opportunities appearing in a novice industry on the steady incline, there's sure to be a lot of interest garnered around investing your efforts, time and money into it. And unsurprisingly, there are now college courses that could teach you to do just that.
As The Wall Street Journal reports, the University of Maryland (UMD) and Cornell University are now both offering courses in cannabis. UMD’s School of Pharmacy announced back in June that it would be offering a master’s degree in medical cannabis, and Cornell’s School of Integrative Plant Science will offer a course in the upcoming semester called “Cannabis: Biology, Society and Industry. While UMD’s master’s program will place its focus on “the areas of basic science, clinical use, adverse effects and public health, and federal and state laws and policies surrounding medical cannabis,” Cornell’s course will “explore the history, culture, pharmacology, breeding, horticulture and legal challenges associated with cannabis in an effort to inform and stimulate new ideas towards solving these problems, motivating future plant breeders, horticulturists, farmers, pharmacologists, and entrepreneurs to be successful in the cannabis industry.”
Cornell’s Program Director of Agricultural Sciences, Antonio DiTommaso told the publication:“I advise a lot of students in a lot of majors and they’re all like, this is going to be cool," adding "I think some of it is just a novelty, but it’s really going to be based on the cropping, the agronomics, the medicinal aspect, the chemistry, consumer attitudes and policy.” As per Fox Business, Marijuana is legal for recreational use in 11 states and Washington, D.C. and is legal for medical use in 22 other states, with the industry having added thousands of jobs last year. To encourage the growth of educational programs and courses relating to it, a few cannabis companies have taken to partnering with universities, and according to the Journal, Chicago-based company, Cresco Labs, has partnered with 10 universities to create courses, offer scholarships and encourage research in the field.