You won’t have to skip class to learn about the weed business.
Scottsdale Community College is offering an 8-week online, non-credit “Introduction to the Cannabis Industry” course this spring, in the first program of its kind in Arizona.
In this course, students will learn about everything from supply chain management, or “seed to sale,” public relations, laws, and regulation as well as business planning, according to Dr. Bobra Crockett, lead faculty for the Cannabis Education Program.
Students do not need to be from Arizona, nor do they need a high school diploma or GED to enroll in the non-credit program, which began in January 2021 after adult-use marijuana was legalized.
It’s a training program for budding entrepreneurs – pun intended – “like a real estate education course would do for realtors,” Demitri Downing said. Downing is the founder and CEO of the Arizona Marijuana Industry Trade Association, or MITA-AZ, which partnered with Scottsdale Community College to develop the curriculum. Students learn skills for such roles as cultivation, ownership, sales, and accounting.
“The emphasis is on being responsive to, ‘What does the workforce need?” Crockett said. “We don’t want to tell students, ‘Here’s what you need to know.’ We want it to be, ‘Here’s what the industry needs you to know.’”
As of early 2021, an estimated…
