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Certificates offer professional growth.
If you’ve ever considered working in the cannabis sector, there are educational pathways to build knowledge and become certified for jobs in the industry. As states continue to legalize medical and recreational cannabis use, it has legitimized the profession — moving past the days of basement grows and sales between friends at a frat party. Now, cannabis courses offer expertise in everything from growing plants to helping health care professionals learn how they can help their patients.
The passage of the Cannabis Patient Protection Act in 2015 had a major impact in allowing Washington state’s Department of Health to adopt rules for training and certification of medical cannabis consultants, and product compliance.
In 2015, Trey Reckling founded the Academy of Cannabis Science and began offering online and in-person courses for their medical cannabis consultant’s certification, which is recognized by the Department of Health.
The online course offers 20 hours of webinars, including 10 hours of live discussions with leading cannabis professionals ranging from doctors to farmers. Students can expect to learn how to answer questions about legal medical cannabis and help patients select products, understand the risks and benefits of cannabis use, and learn how to properly use products.
Reckling says the academy partnered with Seattle Central College in 2015, a first for a higher ed institution and the first recognized partnership by a state department of health in the country.
To be certified as a medical cannabis consultant with the Seattle Central College course, you must be 21 or older and have resided in Washington for six months prior to applying.
The certification course costs $399, and other courses, like the budtender certification, cost $249. Reckling says the courses offered are some of the most affordable higher education courses available and scholarships are available for those previously charged or incarcerated for cannabis related crimes.
“The bar for entry is pretty accessible to most folks, and we also help provide scholarships to an organization called Last Prisoner Project,” Reckling says. “We’re really proud to have committed thousands of dollars worth of scholarships to that organization for people who are formerly incarcerated for nonviolent cannabis offenses.”
The academy has trained thousands of students, from those with no prior higher education to those with advanced degrees, but all courses are done in plain language for all to understand the topics, Reckling says.
The success of the academy has allowed it to partner with more institutions like the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, and Century College in Minnesota, and there are plans for a California program.
Reckling says the diversity of students participating in the various courses includes people from all backgrounds and is a testament to the plant itself.
“Cannabis users reflect people of all ages, of all religions, of all ethnographic backgrounds, and we just want to reflect the spirit of the plant,” Reckling says.
Learn more at academyofcannabisscience.com
“}]] If you’ve ever considered working in the cannabis sector, there are educational pathways to build knowledge and become certified for jobs in the industry. As… Read More
