Michigander thrives as a cannabis tester, breaks down barriers for Latinos in the industry ANDREW MULLIN FOR MICHIGAN GREEN STATE Many years ago, Jorge Lerma came home from a 12-hour workday at his construction job. He was exhausted and filthy. And when he got home, his mother said as much. “Wow, you look a mess,” she said, with Lerma responding with “I feel terrible. Mom, I hate this job.” She suggested he find a new job, but Jorge responded that construction is all he knew. But he knew this was not what he wanted to do his whole life. His mother said he should go back to school and asked what he had a passion for. He responded with weightlifting and growing plants. Since there were not many opportunities to make money with weightlifting, she suggested attending Michigan State University for horticulture. Now, he is a vital part of Viridis, the largest marijuana testing companies in the state of Michigan run by ex-members of the Michigan State Police Department. Now not only does he get to work in a field he is passionate about, but also has opportunities to help break down barriers in the industry for the Latinx community.
LEARNING THE TRADE Lerma began his college career not as a science student, but as an economics student at a community college, and eventually he went back to construction. He eventually found himself going back to school at Lansing Community College where he joined the LUCERO program, which aims to create positive connection for Latino students. It also helps with recruitment, retention, graduation and transferring. At LCC, Lerma met with a professor who helped him apply for classes, which he
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aced. His professor urged him to apply for scholarships and taught him how to, which led him to MSU. “(He) showed me how this was bigger for us as a culture and for Latinos for me to go to school,” Lerma said. He began attending MSU as part of the horticultural program, the science of high intensity growing of high-value crops, Lerma said. He also learned agronomy, which studies field crops. In horticulture, Lerma said people learn how to manipulate plants and grow the plant in different ways. Whether it is by heat, light, water or temperature, it is a hard science-based program, he said. Members of the Latinx community in horticulture at MSU were few in numbers when he attended though, with Lerma being one of three Latino students in all the plant-based science programs. He said this might be because of stereotypes associated with growing plants and the Latinx community.
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Jorge Lerma poses in front of the Viridis cannabis testing lab on July 26, 2021. Lerma is the horticultural scientist at the company.
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“I think that we didn’t have a lot of exposure in it as Latinos,” Lerma said. “Historically, we are the ones out there picking. There is probably a little bit of discontent of, ‘Man, they think about that, I don’t want to. I’m not trying to be outside picking strawberries or blueberries or whatever.’ I’ve had a love for it, so I went into it.” Growing plants, and the science behind it, is a life-long passion for Lerma, he said. One of his first memories was growing flowers with his grandma and he loved growing gardens. He was expanding his knowledge in the classroom, but he was also learning from outside the classroom too. By the time he was in college, medical marijuana was legal in the mitten state. Lerma said the state enacted a caregiver model in 2008 (when medical marijuana was legalized in Michigan) that allowed
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Scientist Evan Clarke works at the Viridis Testing lab
people to grow marijuana medically for patients or themselves. He met people who grew for this model and through them, he learned more about this burgeoning industry.
the community,” Lerma said. “I knew this
“I started reading everything that I could and just getting more and more active in
specialty in marijuana. Soon, he would
day was coming, so I set myself up for it.” After graduating from MSU, Lerma was a skilled horticulturist, with a self-taught have a place to apply his craft.
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