This article first appeared in the Wall Street Journal.
By Likhitha Butchireddygari
Two major universities are creating the first career paths for young people interested in the business of marijuana.
The University of Maryland announced in June that its School of Pharmacy will offer a master’s degree in medical cannabis, and a new course is also being added this fall at Cornell University’s School of Integrative Plant Science called “Cannabis: Biology, Society and Industry.”
“I advise a lot of students in a lot of majors and they’re all like, this is going to be cool,” said Antonio DiTommaso, program director for agricultural sciences at Cornell. “I think some of it is just a novelty, but it’s really going to be based on the cropping, the agronomics, the medicinal aspect, the chemistry, consumer attitudes and policy.”
According to the course description for Cornell’s fall course, some of the industry’s challenges include “establishing better agricultural supply chains, breeding research to develop more vigorous and disease resistant varieties, refining/improving farming practices and identifying new markets.”
Natalie Eddington, dean of Maryland’s pharmacy school, decided to form a master’s program after identifying a knowledge gap regarding medical cannabis for graduates going into health care.
“We have this burgeoning industry across the country in medical cannabis, and with that industry, there has to be an educated workforce, and so we tried to do our part to respond to that,” Ms. Eddington said.
Recreational marijuana use is legal in 11 states and Washington, D.C., and medicinal use in another 22 states. Legal cannabis added more than 50,000 jobs in 2018—a 74% increase in jobs in the industry from a year ago.
In addition to universities, the industry is also trying to create cannabis learning opportunities. Cresco Labs, a Chicago-based cannabis company, announced in May that it would work with universities to create cannabis-focused courses, offer scholarships for “people from communities most negatively impacted by the war on drugs” and generate research in plant science. Thus far, the company has partnered with 10 universities.
While Cornell and Maryland are willing to give cannabis a chance, many universities are not ready to embrace the industry. Don Boggs, associate dean of academic programs at Kansas State University’s College of Agriculture, said that he hasn’t seen interest from his students, which could be because Kansas is one of 10 states where cannabis is fully illegal.
“The cannabis industry is not something that’s been embraced by the state of Kansas,” Mr. Boggs said.
For the past few years, Karson Humiston, the founder and chief executive of Vangst, a recruiting platform for cannabis, has tried to lure workers on college campuses with varying levels of success.
“In 2015, I was going around college campus to college campus, setting up a little booth to collect resumes and profiles, and the amount of schools that just kicked me off the campuses, being like, ‘You can’t be here promoting cannabis jobs,’ was unbelievable,” Ms. Humiston said. “I think it’s getting better, but there’s still a ways to go.”
In the fall, Diana Ciechorska will be one of the first students to take the new cannabis course at Cornell. She already has started a CannaBusiness group at Cornell with a few of her friends.
Through the group, they were able to bring speakers working in the field to campus. Now, she is interning at Northern Swan, an investment firm that’s focused on all parts of the cannabis supply chain.
“There’s very little limit in where the industry can go,” she said. “There are so many fewer players in the space, so you can get further ahead in your career much faster.”
Young people today are more inclined to consider a job in cannabis because of changing attitudes toward the industry. Gallup polling shows that American support for the legalization of marijuana has been steadily increasing in the past decade and reached an all-time high at 66% approval in October 2018.
“A few years ago, if you had said to your parents, ‘Oh hey, I’m going to go to school and major in horticulture and then get a job in cannabis,’ people wouldn’t have taken you seriously,” Ms. Humiston said.
The marijuana industry also provides opportunities across a spectrum of disciplines, from plant science to business to technology. Interest in working with plants has made agriculture one of the fastest-growing degrees on U.S. campuses.
Some of that growth stems from marijuana, but the rise is largely fueled by increasing job opportunities, as well as a growing interest in where food comes from and how it can be produced economically and sustainably, Mr. DiTommaso said.
Read the full article on the Wall Street Journal.
This article first appeared in the Worcester Telegram & Gazette.
By Susan Spencer
Telegram & Gazette Staff
Seventy-two-year-old Nancy Young shakes almost incessantly, a cruel symptom of the Parkinson’s disease she’s borne for decades. The Otego, New York, resident, who lives much of the time in Sutton with her daughter, Michelle Edelstein, Sutton Senior Center director, has taken prescribed opioids OxyContin and Percocet for nearly 30 years. She said it “just barely covers the pain” of her condition.
Around Christmastime last year, Ms. Young decided, on the recommendation of people she met in the supermarket and eventually, her doctor, to try marijuana to ease her symptoms.
She didn’t roll a joint or buy a bong. Instead, she went with her daughter to a Canna Care Docs clinic in Worcester to receive a medical marijuana certification, registered with the state and purchased some edible marijuana products at the Curaleaf dispensary in Oxford.
“I was looking for a way to walk and keep my feet under me, and to stop this infernal shaking,” Ms. Young said in an interview at the Sutton Senior Center.
It took a bit of experimenting to find the right way to consume cannabis. First she tried a cannabis-infused chocolate bar.
“I’m a chocaholic and I took the whole thing,” she said. “My head was going like nobody’s business.”
Ms. Young learned the hard way about “start low, go slow” with marijuana edibles. And she found a different medium she much prefers: a tincture she drops under her tongue when the tremors get bad, especially in the evening.
“It makes me relax, which in turn slows the shaking down and I can grab some sleep,” she said.
“I’m grateful to see her not take those opioids so much,” Ms. Edelstein said. Noting her mother’s reduced pain and relief from other pharmaceutical side effects, she said, “I have to say, I’m kind of an advocate for it.”
Ms. Young is one of the fastest-growing group of marijuana consumers: older adults.
A recently released study out of New York University, supported by the National Institute on Drug Abuse, looked at data from the National Survey on Drug Use and Health, an annual survey of 70,000 Americans of all ages.
Researchers found that in the 2015-2016 survey, 9% of adults ages 50 to 64, and 2.9% of those 65 or older, reported using marijuana in the past year.
That prevalence is a 27% increase for 50- to 64-year-olds, and a 107% increase – essentially doubling – for those 65 or older since the 2012-2013 survey. Compared with the 2006-2007 survey, the increases are 100% for 50- to 64-year-olds and 625% for 65 or older.
A Massachusetts survey by the state Department of Public Health, conducted in late 2017, before recreational marijuana stores were open, found that 18.7% of people in their 50s, or nearly one in five residents in that age group; 14.1% of people in their 60s; and 3.4% of residents age 70 or older reported using marijuana in the past month.
“Grandma is certainly the new face of cannabis,” said Stephanie Gluchacki, president of clinical operations for Canna Care Docs, which has 11 medical offices in Massachusetts.
She said about 24%, nearly one out of four, of their patients are ages 60 to 74, and another 10% are over 75.
“It’s definitely not the demographic one would anticipate to see,” she said.
Ann Brum, spokeswoman for MedWell Health & Wellness, another clinical group that certifies patients with qualifying conditions for medical marijuana eligibility, said baby boomers, roughly ages 55 to 73, and older patients are a growing and important part of the marijuana market.
She highlighted a market trend report by BDS Analytics, which found that two out of three baby-boomer consumers use cannabis for medical or health reasons, often to replace prescription medication.
“They’ve just had it with polypharma, med after med,” Ms. Brum said.
Another recent survey by researchers at Worcester-based Cannabis Community Care and Research Network and the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth reported that medical marijuana consumers ages 50 or older primarily use cannabis to treat chronic pain, anxiety, depression, insomnia and arthritis.
Approximately one in five survey respondents reported that cannabis helped them reduce use of opioids. Nearly a third reduced their use of other medications.
Medical marijuana clinicians and dispensaries are targeting their outreach to tap into this growing demographic.
MedWell, which has brick-and-mortar offices elsewhere in the state, offers local pop-up medical cannabis evaluation and certification clinics, such as one scheduled for Aug. 11 at the Hilton Garden Inn in Worcester.
MedWell clinicians also go into assisted living and retirement communities, or will conduct home visits to evaluate and educate patients on medical cannabis, according to Ms. Brum.
Canna Care Docs offers lunch and learn sessions at senior centers. A nurse practitioner discusses legal and health-related aspects of cannabis, but evaluations and certifications aren’t conducted as part of the seminars.
Medical marijuana dispensaries are invited to participate in these educational sessions as well.
“These Q&As allow for open conversation without judgment,” Ms. Gluchacki said.
There are several common themes among seniors, according to Ms. Gluchacki. They’re seeking relief from chronic pain, especially arthritis; they’re looking to cannabis as a sleep aid; and they’re interested in cannabis’ role in curbing Alzheimer’s symptoms, for which there is some, but not rigorously tested, association, according to the Alzheimer’s Association.
Seniors are also cost-conscious and look to cannabis as a cheaper alternative to prescription medication, she said.
Several in the marijuana industry said seniors were less likely to rely on the internet for information, preferring to have printed material to share with family and friends, and to rely on word-of-mouth.
Ms. Edelstein arranged for a lunch and learn with Canna Care Docs and Curaleaf in May.
Worried at first about what the town would think, she said, “I ran this program with a nervous stomach. And it was amazing.”
Several seniors pursued medical marijuana after that presentation, but most were still reluctant to talk publicly about their use.
“There’s a stigma that goes with it, and that’s a shame,” Ms. Edelstein said. “If it can help somebody, I say, shout it from the rooftops.”
Northbridge Senior Center has scheduled a cannabis information session with Canna Care Docs for Sept. 4.
Read the full article on Worcester Telegram & Gazette.
Effective July 18, 2019, patients in New Jersey may be certified for a period of up to one year for medical cannabis. Canna Care Docs is updating our pricing to make it even easier for patients to get access to assessment, education, and safe treatment.
For a full list of our New Jersey clinic locations and hours, click here.
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