A Metro Vancouver university has announced it’s offering a course on growing medical marijuana this fall.
Kwantlen Polytechnic University said it will have two new online courses this September focused on the ins and outs of the budding pot industry.
One course will cover plant production and facility management, while the other will deal with marketing, sales and drug development.
Instructor Tegan Adams said she’s spent years doing consulting for eight different medical marijuana companies in B.C., and there’s a clear need for formal training.
“There was a pretty big gap in knowledge between the people who were growing marijuana and the people who were investing in it,” Adams said.
“There’s a need for middle management.”
But some are already giving the plan a failing grade. Surrey Fire Chief Len Garis said he worries a course like Adams’s could have unintended consequences.
“My concern would be that the information and what they learn there is going to be diverted to an illicit market,” Garis said.
“They could grow marijuana whether it’s medical or not.”
Adams said her course will cover Canada’s Marihuana for Medical Purposes Regulations, and is intended for students who want to grow pot legally.
If people want to learn how to grow pot illegally, they have plenty of options, she added.
“They can learn a lot of different other places [without] paying a bunch of money to go to university,” Adams said.
“This course in particular though is for people who actually want to work through the MMPR and do it legally and be part of the evolving pharmaceutical and medical world that marijuana’s going to be entering.”
Universities aren’t responsible for what their students do with their education, Adams added, and even accountants can use their skill set to commit crimes.
The online courses are seven weeks long and are open to people across the world.
With files from CTV Vancouver’s Bhinder Sajan
