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Are you looking to get certified in cannabis budtending to help boost your résumé to local cannabis businesses? Or are you a cannabis business owner or executive looking to get some of your employees certified in that area?
Look no further. New Mexico-based SeedCrest has partnered with Oaksterdam University to provide budtender training.
The program, conducted entirely online, is being resold and repackaged by SeedCrest, a cannabis workforce and education platform. Shanon Jaramillo, the CEO and founder of SeedCrest, said the program takes about 20 hours and is self-paced, and it covers everything from industry history, basic product knowledge and best retail practices.
While the program covers budtending from a general perspective, Jaramillo said it’s a stepping stone into the local industry and other programs SeedCrest offers to those in New Mexico looking to make the jump into the cannabis industry.
“(The program) really does help them to understand the industry they’re working in overall, meaning it really helps to ground them around key concepts around products and cultivars and strains,” Jaramillo said. “It gives them a deep dive of vocabulary and information that really helps them, you know, to be better with the customers.”
The program comes at a cost of $486, Jaramillo said, and those interested can enroll through SeedCrest’s website, seedcrest.io.
Program offerings focused on marijuana have popped up since recreational cannabis was legalized.
University of New Mexico’s Continuing Education offers courses and certificates in cannabis compliance, agriculture, health care and business. SeedCrest also partnered with CNM Ingenuity for a curriculum focusing on cannabis establishment technicians. The budtending program comes at a time when New Mexico has thousands of employees scattered across more than 500 dispensaries.
“Budtenders are the primary human interaction that consumers and patients have before purchasing the various options now available in cannabis products,” Oaksterdam University Executive Chancellor Dale Sky Jones said. “It is more important than ever to join forces and improve educational offerings to frontline team members across America.”
Oaksterdam University, which describes itself as the “world’s first cannabis college,” offers certificate programs in cannabis business, horticulture, extraction and budtending, according to its website.
