Long Beach Community College Offering Cannabis Industry Course

California’s Long Beach City College is set to offer its first class focused solely on the cannabis industry, the Long Beach Business Journal reports. The eight-week class will cover cultivation, retail, the history of cannabis in California, and an overview of the state’s seed-to-sale system.

Joe Rogoway, a cannabis industry attorney and the course’s lead instructor, called the course students’ “portal” to the industry and called it “an important first step” for students “interested in engaging with the cannabis industry on a professional level.”

The curriculum was designed with members of the Long Beach Cannabis Association.

Nate Winokur, an LBCA member and founder and owner of BelCosta Labs who will be teaching a class in the fall, said collaborators “decided to introduce something that, at its heart, would introduce different businesses and license types to each other.”

“I, for one, am hoping for cannabis to be treated a lot more seriously as things go on and I think that proper education surrounding that has a lot to do with it.” – Winkour to the Business Journal

The course is part of the community college’s workforce development program and the first class is expected to admit 30-35 students. Kathy Scott, LBCC executive vice president of academic affairs, said the class mirrors others in the workforce development program, in that it’s “industry-driven, industry-requested, and it’s taught by the industry.”

Throughout the U.S., colleges and universities with both medical and adult-use cannabis programs have started offering industry-centric degree and certificate programs. The LBCC course will cost $395.