MARIJUANA GOES MAINSTREAM

Dispensing Careers At Florida Campus

Written by: Craig Handel

Keelin Hoffman came to Florida Gulf Coast University planning to major in finance.

But she also felt she had the type of personality where “I could like just about anything if put in that position. I can go with the flow,” she says.

Discovering she could take classes in cannabis as part of an integrated studies degree, Hoffman changed her major. Besides taking courses in meditation, yoga and happiness — yes, happiness — she took the eight offerings in cannabis. “It’s not like we’re all smoking weed in a circle,” she says. “These are real businesses with real money backing them. People were spending their life savings to get into these businesses.

“But the class that got me the most interested was the Cannabusiness class. There was a lot to learn and it was really interesting.”

Taught by Dr. Fritz Roka, director of FGCU’s Center for Agribusiness, the course invited guest speakers familiar with medical cannabis and agricultural hemp. Hoffman met people running grow houses, hemp houses and managing dispensaries, as well as business people knowledgeable about financial accounting, banking and real-estate issues unique to cannabis.

Now, Hoffman is in the business. For almost three years she has been a general manager for a Trulieve dispensary in Tampa. Trulieve in Florida is the leading provider in medical cannabis and CBD products. Hoffman’s Tampa dispensary is one of 125 Trulieve dispensaries in Florida. More are on the way. Almost five years ago FGCU became the first state university to offer an undergraduate studies cannabis course in Florida. When Sam Walch proposed teaching a course about cannabis in the fall of 2018, Dr. Martha Rosenthal wanted in. Among her many academic achievements, she earned a master's degree in neuropharmacology from Brown University. She also is the author of textbooks, including “Drugs: Mind, Body, and Society.”

It is also the name of a course she teaches.

Rosenthal has been honored to receive the Teacher of the Year award at the University of Florida and at FGCU. “I’ve been studying drugs for 30 years,” she says. “There’s a lot of research going on. One is on anxiety and depression. Chemists are looking at heavy metals in CBD. Nationwide, some patients are getting off opioids and getting on

Before FGCU’s first cannabis course began—it reached capacity in less than 24 hours—dispensaries wanted to hire FGCU students, Rosenthal says. “It’s still the fastest-growing industry in the country.”