The market for legitimate jobs in the cannabis industry is heating up. More and more people are getting involved, and they are coming from a variety of different business backgrounds. The problem is, once you break the surface of understanding the plant, you can end up feeling a bit like Alice, tumbling down the rabbit hole – there is so much to learn!
Each state has its own, often convoluted, approach to regulating sales, cultivation and use. From a business owner’s perspective, licensing can be difficult to navigate without a lawyer, and even if you have one, there is no substitute for your own research. But what if you are just trying to get a job in a dispensary, lab or cultivation site?
According to the National Institute of Health’s website on the issue of credentials, “Healthcare providers’ credentials—the licenses, certificates, and diplomas on their office walls—tell us about their professional qualifications to advise and treat us.” Furthermore, “Schools and educational programs across the country train complementary health practitioners and prepare them for certification in their field.” Did you think the cannabis industry would be any different?
There are many approaches to educating yourself about the modern cannabis industry – you can spend hours on YouTube or High Times.com learning how to grow killer weed in your basement, but what about real vocational training? One school, Medical Marijuana United, says it has the answer. For $20 per month, you can access all seven of its programs:
- Legal Studies (Learn about the laws and current industry news in each state, and find links to numerous resources), including: State laws, State regulations, Current legislative initiatives, Licensing process, lists of business and more.
- Caregiver Certification course, which teaches you the modern hydroponic and aeroponic techniques necessary to produce medical-grade marijuana. Covering topics in history, marijuana laws throughout the world, and the business of providing medicine to patients. Course includes: A Brief History of Cannabis, Introduction to the Cannabis plant, Growing Fundamentals, Growing Mediums and Hydroponic Techniques, Growroom Design, Seedlings and Clones, Controlling the Canopy, Flowering, Harvesting & Trimming, Curing, Tinctures, Hash & Edibles, Cannabinoid Profiles and more.
- Budtender Certification course, which teaches you ‘front-of-the-house’ operations in the modern cannabis industry. This course covers topics such as Introduction to “Budtending,” Patient Archetypes, Illnesses Treatable Using Medical Cannabis, Cannabis Therapy, Strain Knowledge, Methods of Ingestion and more.
- Cultivator Certification course, which teaches you ‘back-of-the-house’ operations in the modern cannabis industry, covering topics such as advanced breeding and genetics, laboratory testing protocols, pest and pathogen mitigation and much more.
- Manager Certification course, which teaches you how to operate a modern cannabis cultivation site and dispensary, covering topics such as Financial Projections and Management, Enterprise Resource Planning, Modern Business Software, State by State Analysis, Treatment Center Operations, Startup Basics, HR/Employee Management, PR basics, best practices and much more.
- Edibles Manufacturing Certification course, which is an exploration into the methodology and process of cooking to create medicated edibles. Students learn the history of cooking with cannabis, great recipes, best practices, and cooking methods for a variety of meals. Students also learn about the chemical processes that occur when cooking with, and ingesting, cannabis edibles, including Decarboxylating Cannabis: Turning THCA into THC, Medical Cannabis Dispensary (MCD) Regulations for Preparation of Edible Cannabis Products, Edibles Safety, Cannabinoid Health Benefits and effects and more.
- Medical Professional Certification course, encompassing the clinical indications for the appropriate use of cannabis, the appropriate delivery mechanisms, the contraindications for such use, as well as the relevant state and federal laws governing the ordering, dispensing, and possessing of this substance. Including, Relevant State and Federal Laws, Cannabinoids and the Endocannabinoid System, Clinical Indications – Anticonvulsive, Clinical Indications – Antispasmodic, Clinical Indications – Antitumor, Appropriate Delivery Mechanisms and Contraindications and Risks of Cannabis Use.
While no piece of paper can guarantee you a job, showing a potential employer that you had the motivation to educate yourself about the facts of the industry you are so passionate about goes a long way toward proving what kind of a person you are during an interview. These days, there’s a lot of competition for these jobs, and this might be the kind of thing that gives you a leg up on other applicants.
We caught up with founder Jeremy Bufford and asked him about his vision for the school. “I’d like to see more people armed with the truth about cannabis” he said, adding, “and I feel that MMU is one of the most affordable ways to do that. Sure there are places you can go and spend almost $2,000 to watch live demonstrations – but with Medical Marijuana United, you could literally attend for more than eight years for the same amount of money, without coming anywhere close to the quality of education we provide.” It’s a bold statement, and only time will tell if the industry does move in the direction Bufford thinks it will, but one thing is sure – every other medical profession requires this kind of training. Shouldn’t we expect the same from our dispensaries?
For more information about Medical Marijuana United, you can visit their website or give them a call at (888) 510-5524. Find them on Twitter @MedMarijuanaTPA and Instagram @MedicalMarijuanaUnited