McMaster University has launched a new program that aims to address a lack of concrete information about marijuana and its effects on people’s health.
The program is called the Science of Cannabis. Registration opened on Monday and it’s being launched by the university’s Continuing Education Centre.
It’s a three-course program that is being offered entirely online and it’s available to people who will deal with marijuana in the course of their careers, such as the medical and health-care professions, education, social services and public service, including police officers.
The three programs address the fundamentals of cannabis science, therapeutic applications of cannabis and the risks and harms of Cannabis.
Dr. James MacKillop, director of the Michael G. DeGroote Centre for Medicinal Cannabis Research, says it is one of the first post-secondary programs in Canada that focuses on the science of pot.
MacKillop says one of the reasons they developed the program is because of the “tremendous appetite in the general public and among health professionals to know the facts and to get the real evidence.”
He adds that the program is not promoting the use of cannabis, so much as preparing people to know the science and then “take that knowledge in a lot of different directions.”