First NJ college offers cannabis studies undergrad degree program

📚 NJ college offers cannabis studies degree
📚 Coursework involves business program
📚 Stockton University also has cannabis minor

Talk about home-grown — New Jersey has its first ever undergraduate degree program for cannabis studies, which is wrapping its first year at Stockton University.

The degree does involve courses on cannabis cultivation, social justice and cannabis and introduction to medical cannabis.

Business classes provide the program’s core, like business policy and strategies, marketing principles and macroeconomics, Stockton University Adjunct Professor Rob Mejia said.

It prepares students to join a strong industry that saw a 66% increase in the number of jobs right in New Jersey from 2023 to last year.

More than 12,200 cannabis positions were listed in New Jersey in March 2024, as the state opened new licensing classes in distribution, wholesaling and delivery, according to Vangst, “the cannabis industry’s No. 1 job platform.”

Looking at states with similar legal cannabis trajectories, like Michigan and Massachusetts, Mejia said it is “very likely” that New Jersey will see up to 30,000 full-time cannabis jobs in the near future.

He also pointed to last year’s record billion-dollars in legal cannabis sales, as the state is up to roughly 200 legal dispensaries and counting.

The new degree also builds on Stockton’s Cannabis Studies minor, which was introduced in 2018 and has more than 70 graduates.

Mejia said those grads have already been working in the hemp industry, between jobs in cultivation, processing, at dispensaries and in management, marketing and other facets of the industry.

He said cannabis studies attracts a diverse crowd of students, with an enthusiastic response. Three new classes will launch in fall 2025, under the degree program.

As buzz and attention grows on campus, so does word of mouth off-campus, too.

Hudson County Community College has a two-year associate's degree in cannabis, Mejia said — adding there is an articulated agreement with Stockton for students looking to complete the four-year program.

Rowan University has an MBA concentration for Cannabis Commercialization — the first such  AACSB-accredited program in the country.

So, Mejia said, a student could conceivably start with the two-year cannabis studies program at Hudson, attain a Bachelor of Science at Stockton and ultimately earn an MBA at Rowan.

Cannabis has been legalized for recreational use in 24 states, including New Jersey since 2021.

As of February 2024, just three states had no legal cannabis program, not even for stringent medical use — Idaho, Kansas and Nebraska.

At the federal level, it’s still classified as a Schedule I drug under the Controlled Substances Act, but the federal law is generally not enforced where cannabis has been legalized.

Last May, the Drug Enforcement Administration moved to recategorize cannabis as a Scheduled III drug, which recognizes low to moderate risk for dependency and an accepted medical use.

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