{"id":15386,"date":"2020-07-25T19:44:11","date_gmt":"2020-07-26T02:44:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/?p=15386"},"modified":"2020-07-25T19:46:09","modified_gmt":"2020-07-26T02:46:09","slug":"ccsf-raises-bar-on-higher-learning-by-offering-cannabis-studies-degree","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/2020\/07\/25\/ccsf-raises-bar-on-higher-learning-by-offering-cannabis-studies-degree\/","title":{"rendered":"CCSF raises bar on higher learning by offering Cannabis Studies degree"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Steve Rubenstein <\/a>July 23, 2020 Comments<\/a> (SFChronicle.com)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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A person walks past the Student Health Center at City College of San Francisco on Friday, December 8, 2017 in San Francisco, Calif.Photo: Lea Suzuki \/ The Chronicle 2017<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In addition to smoking marijuana, college students can now major in it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

City College of San Francisco announced on Thursday it is planning to offer a degree in cannabis studies, which it says is the first of its kind in the United States.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe degree is as an introduction to the complex biopsychosocial relationship of humans to cannabis in multiple cultural, institutional and interpersonal contexts,\u201d CCSF officials said in announcing the cannabis studies associate of arts degree, suggesting that marijuana studies can be as much of a grind as any other college major.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Students will be required to take three three-unit cannabis classes \u2014 Introduction to Cannabis, Anthropology of Cannabis and Psychology of Psychoactive Drugs \u2014 and choose from other classes on such subjects as criminal justice, drug wars, and magic, witchcraft and religion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe\u2019re behavioral scientists. We make everything complicated,\u201d said Jennifer Dawgert-Carlin, chair of the behavioral sciences department which is offering the cannabis major.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Students will study marijuana as it relates to crime, race, income, business, revolution, religion and world history. They will do everything that can be done with marijuana except smoke it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

CCSF is a federally funded institution, City College Trustee Tom Temprano said, and federal law forbids cannabis students from partaking in cannabis \u2014 at least for now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cLet\u2019s see what happens in a Biden administration,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

CCSF officials hope the new major \u2014 four years in the planning \u2014 piques student interest and boosts enrollment at the traditionally cash-starved campus. At present, the college is ready to welcome 100 or so cannabis majors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The official description of the coursework required of all cannabis students suggests that cutting classes to light up is not a good idea.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to a syllabus for Introduction to Cannabis Studies, students will explore the \u201csocial identity, regulation and enforcement (of marijuana) through the lens of social power and inequity.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Students must write a four- to five-page paper \u201cdemonstrating an awareness (of) the role of mass media in shaping hegemonic narratives,\u201d the kind of sentence best parsed while abstaining.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Psychatrist and pain specialist Dr. Michael H Moskowitz, MD, signs his latest book ‘Medical Cannabis: A Guide for Patients, Practitioners, and Caregivers’ for a patient on Thursday, February 22, 2018, in San Rafael, Calif.Photo: Liz Hafalia \/ The Chronicle<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Students enrolled in the Anthropology of Cannabis class will study the \u201carchaeological evidence of cannabis use\u201d by other civilizations and read up on such subjects as the \u201cbiblical representations of cannabis\u201d in the Old and New testaments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Psychology of Psychoactive Drugs, students will make 3-D clay models of the nerve cells of drug users. Other CCSF cannabis classes offered through its extension division will deal with manufacturing and selling cannabis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The hope, said Dawgert-Carlin, is that cannabis students will transfer to four-year colleges \u2014 even though, she conceded, no four-year college offers a cannabis studies program. Students will have to switch to other fields, she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

All CCSF classes in the new major will have cannabis quizzes, cannabis homework, a cannabis midterm and a cannabis final exam. There will also be cannabis research projects \u2014 just not that kind of research.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Steve Rubenstein is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: srubenstein@sfchronicle.com<\/a> Twitter: @SteveRubeSF<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Steve Rubenstein<\/a><\/h5>\n\n\n\n

Follow Steve on:https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/SFChronicle\/<\/a>steverubesf<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Chronicle staff writer Steve Rubenstein first joined The Chronicle reporting staff in 1976. He has been a metro reporter, a columnist, a reviewer and a feature writer. He left the staff in 2009 to teach elementary school and returned to the staff in 2015. He is married, has a son and a daughter and lives in San Francisco. He is a cyclist and a harmonica player, occasionally at the same time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u00a92020 Hearst<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Steve Rubenstein July 23, 2020 Comments (SFChronicle.com) A person walks past the Student Health Center at City College of San Francisco on Friday, December 8, 2017 in San Francisco, Calif.Photo: Lea Suzuki \/ The Chronicle 2017 In addition to smoking marijuana, college students can now major in it. City College of San… Continue reading → <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15386"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15386"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15386\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15389,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15386\/revisions\/15389"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15386"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15386"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15386"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}