Patrick Small, general manager at Fire on Fore, helps Tyler Grill choose a product at the cannabis shop in the Old Port on Wednesday. Brianna Soukup/Staff Photographer

The University of New England Online soon will offer a set of classes aimed at teaching students about one of the state’s fastest-growing and most lucrative industries: cannabis.

The Biddeford-based college announced on Wednesday a set of five certificate programs for the online school that cover business, health care and medicine, law and policy, product development and design, and agriculture and horticulture in the cannabis industry.

Cannabis plant at Greenlight Dispensary in Grandview, Mo. Charlie Riedel/Associated Press, file

UNE is partnering with Green Flower, a cannabis education company in California, to offer the certification programs.

“(Cannabis is) a growing industry that has educational and training needs that are, at this point in time, going largely unmet,” said Ed Cervone, director of partnerships and external relations at UNE. “We feel that by being a small part of serving in that space, we will help the longevity of the industry, which, fortunately, is paying for a lot of needed services” for the state through additional tax revenue.

UNE is the first school in Maine to partner with Green Flower, but it’s not the state’s first to venture into cannabis-related education.

In 2022, Beal University in Bangor launched a cannabis and medical plant sciences degree program. The university now offers courses in cannabis science, cannabis business administration, cannabis business operations and medicinal plant sciences.

In 2021, the University of Maine also offered a one-credit introductory course in cannabis cultivation and science, but the class ended in 2023 when its instructor retired.

The increased educational interest in cannabis goes a long way toward reducing stigma and acknowledging the drug as an economic driver and legitimate industry, said Leo Paquette, president of the Cannabis Guild of Maine and an operator in both the medical and recreational markets.

“They’re not going to have universities giving courses on illicit industries,” Paquette said, calling the UNE program a step in the right direction.

“It brings recognition and realness to something that a lot of us have been building up for a long time,” he said.

Patrick Small, the general manager at Fire on Fore, holds out a cannabis product for Tyler Grill to smell at the Portland shop on Wednesday. The store’s owner said the University of New England Online classes that will teach students about running cannabis businesses could help reduce stigma around the industry. Brianna Soukup/Staff Photographer

MAINE’S TOP CASH CROP

Paquette is the owner of Firefly Organics, a medical cannabis cultivation facility, and a co-owner of Fire on Fore, the Old Port’s first recreational cannabis store.

Cannabis has quickly become Maine’s most valuable cash crop. Together, the state’s medical and recreational markets brought in almost $500 million last year – more than potatoes, blueberries, hay and maple syrup combined.

But the markets also have been struggling to keep up with the industry’s rapid growth. Business owners are combatting concerns about market saturation, which is driving the price of cannabis down while the costs of running the business, including payroll and energy bills, are only increasing.

“I think a lot of people at this point that are active in the business learned a lot of things on the fly and definitely learned some hard lessons” early on, Paquette said.

“Everyone knows there’s going to be failures and there’s going to be successes,” he said, but the cannabis industry faces challenges that many others don’t.

Business owners have limited access to banking, pay steep tax bills and can’t write off normal business expenses.

Additional education could give prospective entrepreneurs a leg up and help them build more sustainable businesses. Plus, attention from well-regarded educational institutions could help improve public perception and bring attention to some of the industry’s challenges, Paquette said.

“It’s definitely a step in the right direction,” he said.

Maine has 157 registered recreational shops, 66 medical dispensaries and an estimated 289 medical storefronts. Medical caregivers are not required to report their stores, so the state Office of Cannabis Policy believes the number is likely much higher.

There are another 87 cultivation sites and 70 manufacturing facilities in the adult-use market and an untold number in the medical market.

It’s one thing to open a business and another thing entirely to be able to sustain it, said Cervone, the UNE director of partnerships and external relationships.

SUSTAINING GROWTH

“In any expanding industry, once you get established, you really need to focus on talent development to sustain it,” he said.

When Max Simon started Green Flower in 2014, he had a feeling that cannabis was going to become an “absolutely mammoth industry.” 

Fire on Fore in Portland on Wednesday. The store was the Old Port’s first medical and first recreational cannabis store. Brianna Soukup/Staff Photographer

But he also knew that “decades of stigma and misinformation” left many people in the dark about how complex cannabis actually is – both from a regulatory and agricultural standpoint. 

Simon started Green Flower to help increase education, awareness and workforce development while also reducing stigma. Green Flower is now partnered with more than 50 higher education institutions in 25 states. The company has expanded rapidly since 2020, when it had just five partnerships. 

“Just because cannabis has been legalized doesn’t mean cannabis has been widely accepted,” Simon said. “The primary driver why my company decided to go the route of partnering with institutions is because they’re the pillar of trust and legitimacy in their local communities.”

Now, the industry is closer than it ever has been to meaningful federal reform, and that will mean big changes – and likely broader acceptance. Many states have legalized cannabis, and the federal government in May formally moved to reclassify cannabis as a less dangerous Schedule 3 drug.

If cannabis is reclassified, “it will create a growth in this industry that you very rarely see in new sectors,” Simon said.

UNE wants to be in on the ground floor.

“We hope we’re getting in at the early (stage) and can help with training as it becomes more mainstream,” Cervone said.