Like it or not, medical marijuana is coming to Florida.
The Florida Medical Marijuana Legalization Initiative, aka Amendment 2, passed with much more than its required super-majority back in November 2016. Even if it hadn’t, however, popular opinion has it that medical marijuana is coming to everywhere, eventually.
And jobs are coming with it.
The various forces opposed to the mainstreaming of medical pot — or any legal cannabis enterprise, for that matter — don’t like to talk about it, but any new industry needs workers, and the medical cannabis industry is no different. A 2016 report by Marijuana Business Daily estimated the U.S. legal cannabis market had generated between 100,000 and 150,000 jobs nationwide at that time, and last year Forbes covered a report by New Frontier Data that projected the creation of more than a quarter of a million positions by 2020 — more than the manufacturing sector is expected to produce in the same time period.
When medical marijuana really, finally comes Florida, there will be jobs growing the plants. Jobs turning the plants into medicine. Jobs dispensing the medicine.
And jobs training people to do all those jobs.
That’s where Pharmacology University comes in.
During ski vacations with his family in Colorado, an engineer from Puerto Rico named Daniel Elias noticed the ads for dispensaries around the state, and became intrigued by the possibilities for investment. It was during his research that he became familiar with weed’s more medically beneficial elements, and his focus changed.
"I started learning about the medicinal benefits, and about lots of people being helped by the product, and that’s what took my mind away,” he said. “From there on, I started working in Puerto Rico trying to get the local government to pass a law about it.”
Elias joined lobbying efforts at home, and by the time cannabis was legalized for medical purposes in 2015, he had already been working with Pharmacology University to put a plan in place for a business that educated individuals in every aspect of the industry — as well as the government’s approval.
“We worked to grow the education part of it,” he said. “It is very important to us that the people who are working in the industry are as prepared as possible… it’s important that people know how to deal with the medicine product.”
Since becoming required training in Puerto Rico, Pharmacology University, with Elias as president, has brought its educational services to major cities in Texas, Nevada, Arkansas and Florida; the company is about to roll out training in Tampa and Orlando. Pharmacology University Tampa’s flagship product is its comprehensive Medicinal Cannabis Course, a 30-hour certification program covering each facet of the industry that’s broken up into five weekly six-hour courses and costs $999 plus tax.
“Basically we teach all the three categories of the industry,” Elias said. “The first one is cultivation, when you cultivate the flower. The second one is oil extraction and manufacturing — from the flower you get oil, and from the oil you make edibles, medicine, drugs, you name it, the technology has come so far since the beginning. And the last part of the industry is dispensary, that’s the people who get directly in touch with the patients, and basically with their knowledge and the doctors’ requirements, then they can tell the patients which medicine, it depends on the patient’s needs and conditions.
“We have developed a course that will teach each one of those very thoroughly, and when people get our certification they will be ready to work in the industry in any of those areas.”
Interestingly, Elias estimated that 30% of the people most interested in the cultivation part of the course have experience on the illegal side of the weed-growing fence, and are looking to broaden their skills and enter the legitimate workforce. He said someone who moves on to other cultivation-specific Pharmacology University courses and achieves the certification of Master Grower can make up to $125,000 a year, and a quick look at employment site indeed.com reveals nearly 2,000 job openings in the more pot-friendly states, many of them in the cultivation arena.
While the Pharmacology University certification is not required for employment in the industry in Florida, in other states it is among the courses accepted for licensing. Elias said the company has had conversations with members of the state senate and Chamber of Commerce as well as the health department, and hopes to be included in a law currently being crafted that will provide clearer requirements for licensing statewide. He also said the course is accredited by the Florida Bar Association’s continuing education program, and that his own dispensary businesses have always operated within FDA guidelines, though CL was unable to independently confirm these assertions before press time.
When asked if the recalcitrance of the Florida Department of Health and other state agencies to move forward with full implementation of medical cannabis infrastructure was a hindrance, Elias was practical, saying that it’s par for the course.
“Actually, we have been doing this for many years and typically it’s the same everywhere,” he said. “Even though it seems slow, it’s on the same pace as everybody else… It will take some time, but it is good for us because we are the first ones to offer education [in Florida], and that’s the only thing we do because it’s the thing we do best.”
This article appears in May 3-10, 2018.