{"id":327262,"date":"2017-09-22T18:25:40","date_gmt":"2017-09-22T17:25:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/high-education-michigan-university-to-offer-weed-growing-course\/"},"modified":"2017-09-22T18:25:40","modified_gmt":"2017-09-22T17:25:40","slug":"high-education-michigan-university-to-offer-weed-growing-course","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/high-education-michigan-university-to-offer-weed-growing-course\/","title":{"rendered":"High education: Michigan university to offer \u2018weed-growing\u2019 course"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/img.rt.com\/files\/2017.09\/thumbnail\/59c53a5dfc7e934e7e8b4567.jpg\" \/><\/p>\n<div>\n<p><time class=\"date date_article-header\">Published time: 22 Sep, 2017 16:35 <\/time><time class=\"date date_article-header\">Edited time: 22 Sep, 2017 17:25 <\/time><\/p>\n<p>        The Northern Michigan University (NMU) will be the first college in the US to prepare students for work in the country&#8217;s burgeoning medical marijuana industry.<\/p>\n<div class=\"article__text text  js-mediator-article\">\n<p>Medicinal marijuana is big business in the US, with nearly half of the states having legalized the production and sale of the plant for medicinal purposes. In eight states marijuana is legal for both medicinal and recreational uses.<\/p>\n<p><strong\/><em>\u201cThis area is just exploding. I mean, you see Washington, Colorado, Oregon, California with full legal recreational marijuana,\u201d<\/em> Associate Chemistry Professor Brandon Canfield <a href=\"http:\/\/detroit.cbslocal.com\/2017\/09\/21\/northern-michigan-university-the-first-in-u-s-to-train-undergrads-for-marijuana-industry\/\">told<\/a> local media WWJ.\u00a0<em>\u201cYou\u2019ve got over half the states with medicinal legal, and with all of that has come a huge need for these trained analytical chemists.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<p>This fledging industry is booming, generating billions of dollars in revenue for states that have embraced the plant and its many benefits. Despite the clear interest in marijuana production, however, there\u2019s a distinct lack of skilled workers in the industry \u2013 and that\u2019s where NMU comes in.<\/p>\n<p><strong\/><em>\u201cThere is great demand for qualified technical personnel and great opportunities for skilled entrepreneurs,\u201d<\/em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.nmu.edu\/mc\/node\/18?articleID=174022\">said<\/a> Mark Paulsen, head of the NMU chemistry department. <em>\u201cOur focus will be on analyzing variations in plant compounds and the impacts of different growing and processing methods.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong\/><em>\u201cThe knowledge and skills acquired are applicable to the cannabis industry, but also translate to the broader field of natural products chemistry and a wide range of professional opportunities.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong\/>That\u2019s not to say that students enrolled in the inaugural Medicinal Plant Chemistry undergrad course, starting this fall, will be elbows deep in weed plants \u2013 at least not yet.<\/p>\n<p><strong\/><em>\u201cWe\u2019re not going to be actually growing anything on campus. Maybe following the 2018 Michigan election, maybe we\u2019ll revisit that depending on the outcome and what ballots are present on that election,\u201d<\/em> Canfield\u00a0said.<\/p>\n<p><strong\/><em>\u201cWe\u2019ll be practicing extraction and analysis techniques on other plant systems,\u201d<\/em> he went on.<\/p>\n<p>With the historical stigma of cannabis disappearing in a cloud of dense smoke, many states are beginning to realise the plant\u2019s potential for restoring their floundering tax revenues, a new batch of specialized, legal, cannabis scientists are sorely sought after, and it seems NMU are blazing a trail likely to be followed by others.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>Via <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rt.com\/usa\/404251-university-michigan-weed-course\/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=RSS\">RT<\/a>. This piece was reprinted by <a href=\"http:\/\/rinf.com\">RINF Alternative News<\/a> with permission or license.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Published time: 22 Sep, 2017 16:35 Edited time: 22 Sep, 2017 17:25 The Northern Michigan University (NMU) will be the first college in the US to prepare students for work in the country&#8217;s burgeoning medical marijuana industry. Medicinal marijuana is big business in the US, with nearly half of the states having legalized the production [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":327263,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[519],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-327262","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-newswire"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/327262","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=327262"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/327262\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/327263"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=327262"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=327262"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=327262"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}