To submit school announcements, click on image.
Clarification: Program registration ends Monday.
Northern Essex Community College closes registration Monday for its final cohort of the year for a nine-week cannabis education program.
Green Flower, a California-based company that specializes in cannabis education has partnered with more than 60 colleges and universities nationwide since 2014, including Haverhill’s own Northern Essex. The company offers three certificate programs in cultivation, retail and extraction and product development.
“Those are the three main business sectors in the industry,” Max Simon, chief executive officer of Green Flower told WHAV. “There’s the most amount of people in cultivation growing the plant, then you have a subset of people that are making all the different kinds of products including edibles, concentrates and tinctures, and of course once the products are made, they have to be sold to consumers which is what happens at retail.”
He added, “We do have these three programs that cover those areas because those are the areas that have the greatest level of demand for well-trained people.”
Simon, who has spent his career in online education programs, said the program has had great success and has partnered with institutions in 23 states including Wisconsin, where medicinal and recreational cannabis remains illegal.
“What’s been amazing about building Green Flower is the diversity of people that come into these programs and the diversity of outcomes that they go on to achieve,” he said. “We have lots of people that do this to get jobs and by getting a formal education and getting a certificate from Northern Essex, it really does help you stand out among a sea of people who don’t have a professional background or maybe just have enthusiasm for the product.”
The online program focuses on topics such as state level regulations of cannabis, with state regulations stricter compared to alcohol and tobacco, noting that compliance requirements that businesses must follow “doesn’t make a lot of rational sense.”
“We really cover the regulatory framework and we encourage people to get really involved in the process of adjusting these laws because it is heavy handed and it is unnecessary, but it is the framework that we live in today, so you have to play by the rules to get into the game and hopefully the game and the rules will change and evolve as we have more people who are getting involved in creating this industry,” he said.
Simon, a medical cannabis patient in his adult life, said he believes cannabis is “under leveraged and underutilized” for medical treatments, recalling stories from former students of the program.
“The right dose with the right product at the right time can really transform sleep habits, and I know this not just from my own family but through the thousands of students that we have interacted with,” he said.
To Simon, involvement in the cannabis industry could be life changing, citing success stories from students who began their own businesses and gave newfound passion for graduates.
“It’s an opportunity to tie something that people have a lot of personal passion for into something that could actually become a real career and a real opportunity for them, it’s a great business and it really helps a lot of people,” he said.
Registration for the final program of 2024 closes Monday, Dec. 9. Registration can be found online and is $800 per program.