The University of Maryland School of Pharmacy has scrapped its plan to offer medical cannabis certification courses, the Baltimore Sun reports. Alex Likowski, a university spokesman, indicated that the classes have been canceled after school officials consulted with the state’s attorney general’s office who said there was a risk associated with the plan due to federal cannabis laws.
“If there’s any question of the law, [the attorney general is] often consulted,” Alex Likowski said in the report. “Regarding medical cannabis, even though Maryland and many other states have approved it, it’s still illegal under U.S. law.”
The classes were expected to start in August but were suspended indefinitely. A university-associated website claims that enrollments were “suspended temporarily while the business agreements are being finalized by the university.”
Maryland’s law requires that employees of cultivation, processing, dispensary, and laboratory companies must have training in their field; physicians are not required to have any special training. The program was based on a curriculum developed by Americans for Safe Access, who has offered its own training program since 2002.
Currently, the University of Vermont College of Medicine’s Department of Pharmacology offers a medical cannabis course, which was rolled out in 2016. The City College of San Francisco is developing a course on the legal cannabis industry, and the Cleveland Cannabis College began offering courses earlier this year. In 2007, Oaksterdam University was founded in Oakland California. Earlier this month, Hocking College, a two-year technical school in Nelsonville, Ohio, announced they intend to apply to serve as a cannabis testing lab in the state.