MARIJUANA CLASSES ARE ON A ROLL

Students Learn Pot Can Be Big Business

LOS ANGELES - This school doesn't have a problem with students not
paying attention.

"They're paying us to come, and our classes are full," says Jeff
Jones, chancellor of the Los Angeles branch of Oaksterdam University,
where students learn the business of marijuana from seed to ash.

Attitudes are changing as 14 states now have laws allowing some form
of legal marijuana use with a doctor's recommendation. And with
legalization comes a growing cannabis industry.

In California alone, the medical-marijuana business could be worth as
much as $2 billion, says Dale Gieringer, state coordinator for NORML,
a marijuana advocacy group. Prices vary widely, but dispensaries have
advertised an ounce of dried marijuana for $340 or more.

"Ten years ago, I couldn't get a room full of people to talk about
this," Jones says. Now, people from across the country come to learn
how to legally grow, distribute and profit with pot, even though it
remains illegal under federal law.

Oaksterdam holds classes in three California cities and is expanding
out of state. Students learn about the law and science of marijuana
as well as how to lobby local government leaders and how to tamp down
the pungent, tell-tale smell of cannabis gardens. Growers often worry
about theft, and because of legal uncertainties, there is always the
risk of a raid by authorities.

About 7,000 people have taken classes at Oaksterdam, says Executive
Chancellor Dale Sky Clare, who oversees all branches. There are
waiting lists to enroll - 850 students started courses this semester,
and more than 300 have signed up for next semester, she said.

"It's not just hippies in tie-dye," Clare says.

Jeff Studdard, a former police officer, was among the students at a
recent class. Studdard, 46, of Riverside County, said he had been a
school district police officer and a Los Angeles County auxiliary
sheriff's deputy trained to recognize drug users until a broken back
forced him to retire. The pain, even after three surgeries, prompted
him to try marijuana.

"I never smoked pot as an officer," he says, but after the injury, "I
know firsthand the benefits." He was hoping to incorporate medical
marijuana in a holistic treatment business.

Kenji Klein, a Ph.D. candidate at the University of
California-Irvine, is studying the emerging legal pot market as a
basis for his doctoral thesis. "It's interesting to me the way social
change and entrepreneurship get linked together," Klein said.

Many students, worried about legal uncertainties, did not want to be
identified.

"We all like to have fun in this industry, but sometimes people go to
jail," says Sarah Diesel, an instructor.

Oaksterdam University opened in 2007 in Oakland. Its name is part
Oakland, part Amsterdam, the Dutch city known for its permissiveness
toward pot. Classes are offered in Oakland, Los Angeles and
Sebastopol, north of San Francisco. Last year, it expanded to
Michigan, where voters passed a medical-marijuana law in 2008.

On a recent weekend, 55 students in Los Angeles paid $250 each for
Marijuana 101, a two-day introductory course.

They were instructed on key court decisions, how to work in a
dispensary, which varieties of cannabis are best for various ailments
and how to cultivate a good pot crop.

Oaksterdam is not the only school of its type. In Michigan, Nick
Tennant, 24, opened Med Grow Cannabis College. "Our law is in its
infancy," Tennant says. "We've been doing very well. I think there's
huge demand."

Oaksterdam's founder and owner, Richard Lee, is a successful medical
marijuana entrepreneur. His Coffeeshop Blue Sky is one of four
dispensaries licensed in Oakland. He recently financed most of a $1
million signature-gathering effort for a proposal on California's
ballot this fall to fully legalize pot while establishing state and
local taxation.

"It's been amazing, the response," Lee says of his school. "People
come in from all over the country."

Special Agent Casey McEnry of the federal Drug Enforcement
Administration, wouldn't comment on the cannabis school but said, "It
is not the practice or policy of DEA to target individuals with
serious medical conditions who comply with state laws."

Much of the school's teaching is devoted to helping students operate
within the law, while acknowledging that gray areas remain 14 years
after California approved the nation's first medical-marijuana law.
"If you have a grow, don't let anyone know," Diesel warns.

In a recent Los Angeles class, there were students from states with
medical-marijuana laws, such as Colorado and Nevada, and states
without, including Arizona, Florida, Minnesota and Texas.

"Everybody wants to get in this business," Diesel said.