Colleges To Offer Courses Centered Around Marijuana Cultivation And Business

Colleges are now opening up their course listings to include classes surrounding the production and cultivation of marijuana.

Now, students at Ivy League schools like Cornell University and the University of Maryland can sign up for classes that center around the cultivation of marijuana, as well as the logistics of legal processes and social issues surrounding cannabis. The courses will be introduced to colleges around the States, which comes after the urge for more education in the cannabis industry.

Currently, there are 11 states that have legalized the plant, and 33 states permit the plant for medical purposes. The increase in legalization has prompted a need for jobs in the cannabis trade; some career paths range from salespeople to accountants, CBS News reports. It’s expected that sales of medical and recreational marijuana will reach $10 billion in 2019, greatly topping the sales of e-cigarettes and the Fortnite video games, according to Marijuana Business Daily.

Last month, the University of Maryland announced its school of pharmacy would be opening a new master’s degree program. In medical cannabis science and therapeutics, a two-year degree designed to meet growing employer demand for trained experts in medical applications of the plant, CBS News reports. Other institutions like Clark University started an online certificate program to teach intricacies of marijuana regulations and health and public safety concerns. Cornell will add a new class focusing on the history, horticulture, and legal issues surrounding marijuana.

“I advise a lot of students in a lot of majors, and they’re all like, this is going to be cool,” Antonio DiTommaso, program director for agricultural sciences at Cornell, told The Wall Street Journal, which first reported on the new class. “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.”