The cannabis industry has seen tremendous growth in the last few years, and now professionals are looking to colleges to educate the community on the business and expand the cannabis workforce.
LBCC held its first one-of-a-kind cannabis symposium on Nov. 6 to discuss the benefits of taking marijuana courses and the direction students can take their careers in the industry.
The event was hosted in conjunction with the Long Beach Collective Association (LBCA), whose work focuses on cannabis safety, education, and advocacy within the city.
During the first panel, LBCC’s vice president of workforce development Melissa Infusino and members of LBCA delved into what it was like to develop a cannabis class.
All of those involved faced challenges of meeting federal law restrictions and appeasing the college’s conservative groups who dictated the fate of the course’s funding.
The speakers of the panel spent months engineering the curriculum material after reading over several different licensing types and 700 pages of regulations.
“One mistake can really cause so much damage to your business…there are a lot of consequences and there is a lot of responsibility so that’s why there is a big need for training skilled folks to understand these things,” said LBCA president Adam Hijazi.
Former LBCC student Nicole East was one of the speakers on the second panel. East took cannabis courses during the spring 2022 semester and is now the marketing director at Lab Plex, a company that tests cannabis products before they are merchandised.
“These people are advocating for policy, they are investing millions of dollars and they are paving the way for this billion-dollar industry in our city,” East said about LBCA.
The symposium also went over plans to add internship programs to existing courses and create in-depth guides into the program’s subject matter.
The panelists even discussed the possibility of growing tomato plants in place of cannabis on school grounds since tomatoes and weed have similar growing methods.
The symposium, which cost $50 to attend, had over 65 people who showed up in person and via zoom. All of the attendees were offered priority registration for the cannabis course taking place in spring 2023.