New Mexico's Medical Marijuana Industry Is About To Bloom
Want to break into the marijuana business? You too can learn how to grow it, cook it, distribute it and, best of all, it’s 100 percent legal.
If Canntechs were to advertise on late-night television, that might be the pitch. As early as next month, the new company plans to offer training courses on New Mexico’s medical cannabis laws and its emerging marijuana industry.
The basic-level class—which includes cultivation, cooking and New Mexico-specific legal issues—will cost $324.75 plus tax, according to the curriculum posted online at canntechs.com.
In late December, the New Mexico Department of Health passed a series of rules that allow nonprofits to apply for licenses to grow and distribute pot to card-carrying medical cannabis patients.
Canntechs is a for-profit company and won’t be handling marijuana directly. Instead, Canntechs will serve as an all-purpose consulting and education firm, which will train the workers to fill jobs in growhouses and dispensaries, help patients register for the state program and help nonprofits craft their license applications.
To help train workers, Canntechs will offer “cannabis technician” certification. Although the certification isn’t recognized by any state, Canntechs senior partner Brett Bratcher says the firm hopes it will eventually become the national standard.
“There are still a lot of smarmy, cheesy, tongue-in-cheek jokes and the old Cheech and Chong stereotypes [about medical cannabis], and that’s really not what this industry or this program is about,” Bratcher tells SFR. “The only way the general public is going to take us seriously is if we take a fairly stringent approach to it.”
Bratcher says his interest in medical cannabis derives from his career in hospice care and from having a close relative diagnosed with multiple sclerosis.
A DOH spokesman tells SFR the department is unable to comment on the company.
Canntechs also is in the process of establishing operations in Colorado, Nevada and Rhode Island. In New Mexico, it is advertising jobs for a nurse and a physician, who will help patients with eligible conditions apply for their cannabis cards.
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