Get weeducated in the most formal sense

Rolling with the sushi at Denver’s Kush & Canvases is some of the most fun we’ve ever had

Oh, how we miss our (introverted but much, much cooler) social lives of old

Back in 2019 B.C. (before COVID), some of the DGO Mag staff hit the road for a short trip to Denver, where we had loaded our weekend with all things cannabis-related. We’d been looking for a hot minute to find a business that offered cannabis-related activities that were interesting enough to write on, and had stumbled upon the Kush & Canvases website one quiet Tuesday afternoon. And that, friends, is how we ended up on the front steps of Sarah Woodson’s Denver home.

Kush & Canvases is a small business started by Woodson, where clients can take classes in which they may paint and ingest marijuana or take sushi and joint rolling classes (it’s a bring-your-own-weed policy). We were there for the sushi.

We could tell right off the bat this night was gonna get interesting. We had smoked just before we’d arrived (don’t worry, we took a Lyft) and couldn’t stop laughing long enough to show everyone that we were indeed very serious journalists. We had also never rolled sushi before, and the idea of learning in front of another group of people was daunting.

Luckily, it was just us and a couple who were visiting from Colorado Springs while another group sat in the back painting and laughing so much we were a little jealous we couldn’t join them. Nice, intimate, and not intimidating whatsoever.

Woodson’s story of how she came to be the entrepreneur of her own cannabis cooking and art classes is unique. Not long ago, Woodson was a paralegal who had built up her legal career for a decade before it lost its allure, according to a profile Ebony published on her.

“What I could think of, what I could do to get out of the legal career?” Woodson told Ebony. “If I smoked weed, what is something I would love to do? Weed and paint!”

Ebony reported that Woodson is probably one of very few African Americans working in Colorado’s social cannabis consumption industry. She told Ebony she hopes to rally more Black people and people of color to work in the cannabis field.

That, friends, is how this scenario came to be. We were making three rolls that evening – tuna, mushroom, and imitation crab – with chef Harold Sims, who we later learned has the superpower of infinite levels of patience.

After what I thought was carefully cutting the tuna meat and rolls as Sims had demonstrated, it was apparent that my inability to follow directions had followed me into this sushi class. Our entire table spent the evening cry-laughing at my sorry attempts to make sushi, which was not fit for even a dog to eat. At one point, the way I cut my sushi roll caused it to completely fall apart, and the chef took my knife away and sliced it himself so I had at least one decent roll to show off to the world on my Instagram feed.

My attempt to follow his instructions on how to roll a joint did not go well either. Eventually, I gave up and handed over my roll to Sims so that he could fix it into being something smokable.

If you’re looking for a night of a helluva lot of fun, weed consumption, and laughter, and you’re intimidated by the idea of being around a big group of people you don’t know, Kush & Canvases might be the class for you. There’s nothing intimidating about stepping into Woodson’s home. The instantaneous warm welcome will easily fool you into forgetting you’re not rolling sushi and joints in your own home. At Kush & Canvases, you’re among friends, even with strangers.

— Amanda Push

Get weeducated about ganja with these cannabis higher education options

Who needs freakin’ physics when you can study the science of weed instead?

With the cannabis industry expanding and becoming more complex by the day, it’s important that those going into the field be fully knowledgeable of its full breadth. After all, it is the fastest growing industry in the U.S., according to Markets Insider.

Thankfully, there are some institutions of higher learning that are getting in real deep on the business of bud. Like, so deep. So very deep.

And, given that so many of us are rethinking how we work, live, and play, this could be a great time to carve out a new career path in good old cannabis. Here are two options for expanding your mind and learning more about cannabis.

Conquer the field of cannabis control with a graduate certificate program from Excelsior College

Excelsior College, a regionally accredited, not-for-profit online college, offers a virtual graduate certificate program in cannabis control—which you can enroll in to further your career or just learn a heck of a lot more about cannabis. (Or maybe even become a weed professor. Is that a thing? If so, we want in.)

What is a cannabis control program, you ask? Glad you asked! This threecourse, nine-credit certificate offers an educational opportunity to people currently working or looking to work in the cannabis industry.

Excelsior’s certificate program educates students on the “opportunities, challenges, and complexities of the cannabis industry and its accompanying regulations.” Students will learn the impact of cannabis legalization on a local, state, and national level.

Instructors hope to prepare students to eventually dialogue and work with policymakers, industry leaders, proprietors, etc as far as the cannabis market is considered.

Before jumping in, here are a few things you should know about the program:

The program is 100% online.

The three courses include: — Implications of Legalization of Cannabis: Policy and Compliance — Interstate/International Commerce: Policy and Regulatory Environment — Risk Assessment in Cannabis Control

Admission to Excelsior’s cannabis control certificate program requires students to have a bachelor’s degree.

This graduate-level certificate program takes an interdisciplinary approach and can be taken alone for college credit and career advancement or applied toward four of Excelsior College’s master’s degree programs.

“The more we talk to experts and leaders in the industry, the more we are hearing about the need for education and training in this dynamic and rapidly-evolving regulatory space. Despite projections of continued growth, regionally-accredited universities and colleges have been relatively slow to respond with educational offerings,” Scott Dolan, dean of graduate studies at Excelsior College, told Benzinga. “For us, this program is naturally aligned with our disciplinary expertise in business, public health, criminal justice, and public administration.”

Get your weed degree on with the Cannabis Training University’s two- and four-year de-