Here in Michigan with manufacturing in a tail spin, the state's economy looks to new industries to provide employment to its citizens.
An unexpected answer is provided by Dr. Stuart Rosenfeld, an expert in economic development who is interested in the impact of creative enterprises. "The creative economy has often been overlooked in the economic development literature and undervalued in economic development analyses and plans, largely because much of the wealth it produces falls just under the radar screen of conventional economic analysis," says Rosenfeld.
The creative economy is a sprawling sector, powered by the output of "originators" such as artists, architects, designers of all types, game-developers, chefs, among others. It doesn't have the pizzaz of technology-based industries, Rosenfeld notes.
For example, at most colleges, marijuana is very much an extracurricular matter. But at Med Grow Cannabis College, marijuana is the curriculum: the history, the horticulture and the legal how-to's of Michigan's new medical marijuana program.
Under the Michigan law, patients whose doctors certify their medical need for marijuana can grow up to 12 cannabis plants themselves or name a "caregiver" who will grow the plants and sell the product. Anyone over 21 with no felony drug convictions can be a caregiver for up to five patients. So far, the Department of Community Health has registered about 5,800 patients and 2,400 caregivers.
"This state needs jobs, and we think medical marijuana can stimulate the state economy with hundreds of jobs and millions of dollars," said Nick Tennant, the 24-year-old founder of the college, which is actually a burgeoning business (no baccalaureates here) operating from a few barebones rooms in a Detroit suburb.
The six-week, $485 primer on medical marijuana is a creative cross between an agricultural extension class covering the growing cycle, nutrients and light requirements ("It's harvest time when half the trichomes have turned amber and half are white") and a gathering of serious potheads, sharing stories of their best highs ("Smoke that and you are...medicated!").
The only required reading: "Marijuana Horticulture: The Indoor/Outdoor Medical Grower's Bible" by Jorge Cervantes.
Sources: www.AnnArbor.com November 29, 2009 and The New York Times, November 29, 2009
Subscribe to this blog
