Cannabis Degree Now Offered at Northern Michigan University

With potentially thousands of new growers, dispensaries, transporters and testers gaining state licenses in December, Michigan’s cannabis industry is expected to generate $700 million a year once fully in operation. And recognizing an impending need for technical personnel, Northern Michigan University is now offering a specialized degree geared toward cannabis.

Although schools like the University of Denver and Harvard offer classes on cannabis law and policy, NMU’s four-year medicinal plant chemistry degree—officially launched in August for the fall semester—combines chemistry, biology, botany, horticulture, marketing and finance making it the first of its kind.

Brandon Canfield, an associate chemistry professor at NMU, told the Detroit Free Press he saw a need for the program after attending an American Chemical Society meeting in San Diego, where series of talks were held on a growing need for analytical chemists in the cannabis industry.

Michigan’s Department of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs (LARA) recently announced that it will require two levels of testing—once after harvest and once after processing—for all medical cannabis and cannabis infused products. Mandatory testing on all products distributed through the legal cannabis market requires laboratories and technically trained individuals to staff them. In preparation NMU faculty members say they’ve attending various cannabis related conferences throughout the nation seeking to recruit students for the new program as well as orchestrate job placement opportunities after graduation. Canfield says NMU’s chemistry department is already seeing an outpouring of interest, but warns the program isn’t a walk in the park.

“We’ve had an overwhelming response from growing operations, dispensaries and other businesses who want to take our students as interns,” Canfield said. “Obviously, the program is new and different and it might speak to a certain crowd, but for a student to succeed, they’re going to have to be very dedicated and motivated. This is not an easy program. It’s a really intense, biology chemistry program.”