Cheech and Chong, Snoop Dog and Bellevue University now all have something in common — an interest in cannabis.
In BU’s case, their interest in cannabis is related to the legal variety — medical marijuana. The university will start offering courses in medical cannabis starting in June.
“It’s an emerging industry with thousands of people working in it and legal cannabis sales are in the billions of dollars,” said Academic Dean of Science and Technology Mary Dobransky.
The BU medical cannabis program will consist of 16 credits and Dobransky said it can be done in a year or at a more leisurely pace.
This certificate is academic in nature and does not include any hands-on experiential learning, such as cultivation or processing.
The program is designed for those who want to understand the medicinal and therapeutic uses of cannabis in professional medical practice, retail and e-commerce settings, and for those focused on using cannabis personally to treat disease and improve quality of life.
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Dobransky said the interest in information on medical cannabis has been on the rise.
“The growth of the industry and the growth of the number of states that have legalized medical cannabis, we are seeing greater interest in the education side because people are seeking information about medical cannabis,” Dobransky said. “If somebody wants to work in the industry, then they would like to get a higher education background as well.”
Leafly, a cannabis marketplace and online resource, found 428,059 full-time equivalent jobs supported by legal cannabis as of January 2022 in its annual job report. Last year, the cannabis industry created an average of 280 new jobs per day.
The program will offer up to 16 credit hours and is only available online. Students from across the country will be eligible to take the courses.
“We have students in all 50 states, several of the states that have legalized cannabis,” Dobransky said. “We want to be sure to offer it online so that we could reach those students in states where there is approved legal medical cannabis.”
Bellevue University is working with several experts in the medical cannabis field including Dr. Andrea Holmes and Dr. Amanda McKinney — who already launched a similar program at Doane University.
“It does help to work with experts who have already developed courses in certificates, that does provide us help in understanding what would be the most useful to the prospective students,” Dobransky said.
Each online section of the BU medical cannabis class will be limited to 24 students.
“What would happen is if more students wanted to take it, we would open another section,” Dobransky said. “That way we can keep the class size fairly small and the students can have as much one-on-one interaction with the teacher and interaction with their classmates.”
Dobransky said students who enroll in the medical cannabis program can apply for federal funds approved by the Department of Education.
“We are very excited to be able to serve this education need, our certificate program focuses on the therapeutic uses of cannabis for medical purposes and we see more and more people incorporating treatments,” Dobransky said.
For more information and application details, visit bellevue.edu/degrees/certificate-program/medical-cannabis.