Roanoke College, a private liberal arts school in Salem, will allow its students to pursue the cannabis program beginning in the fall, according to an article by The College Fix, the education watchdog.
The curriculum will include a cannabis science track, which will focus on botany, biology, and chemistry.
Cannabis plants, cannabis sativa, are grown for marijuana use from their leaves and flowers. Cannabis is legal in Virginia if it is grown and sold for medicinal purposes but is currently illegal to sell in the state for recreational purposes.
The other track will aim to look at cannabis from a liberal arts perspective. The program aims to create critical thinkers and teaches people to "see the big picture and not to focus in a small tiny realm,” the program director told The College Fix.
Matt Lamb, associate editor at The College Fix, tells AFN the university is not doing itself any favors because is appears to be welcoming students to participate in the drug business.
“Dr. Steve Wilkinson, out of Yale University, has a study that looks at the link between cannabis use and psychosis, for example,” Lamb says.
Beyond obvious moral and legal issues with cannabis, Lamb predicts a lingering issue if a student pursues that degree.
“If at some point down the road, the cannabis industry goes to pot – pun intended – or it becomes illegal, or there are other changes,” he says, “these students will be left with a degree in a very specific field that may not even exist."
