It seemed like a typical grand opening. The president of Oaksterdam University and an Oakland City Council member helped cut a red ribbon strung across the doorway. A crowd of 100 people clapped and cheered.
The city council member, Rebecca Kaplan, praised the school for helping revive the neighborhood, stimulating the local economy and attracting people to downtown Oakland.
"This is a large, growing and thriving business," she told the crowd at the celebration Thursday evening. "It is bringing customers for all the other businesses. It is a key part of the growth and revitalization of the entire neighborhood."
But this is no ordinary university. It trains students to work in California's booming medical marijuana business. Its mission is to build support for the movement to legalize cannabis.
The college has expanded so quickly since it opened in 2007 that it outgrew its two previous spaces. Its new campus is a three-story, 30,000-square-foot building where it can enroll up to 100 students in its three-month course.
Richard Lee, the founder and president of Oaksterdam University, is a veteran activist who also is sponsoring a statewide ballot measure that would allow adults 21 or older to possess and grow relatively small amounts of marijuana. The initiative also would allow cities and counties to tax and regulate marijuana sales and cultivation.
The name Oaksterdam -- a blend of Oakland and Amsterdam -- first came into use to describe the area of downtown Oakland where more than a dozen medical marijuana dispensaries sprang up a decade ago. Amsterdam is one of the few places in the world where marijuana is sold openly in shops and coffee houses.
Oakland, California's eighth largest city with a population of 400,000, eventually began regulating the dispensaries and pared the number from 14 to four. But the name for the neighborhood stuck. Lee took the name for the university after a visit to Amsterdam to study the marijuana industry there.
Lee calls himself a "Libertarian Republican." He owns several other businesses in the neighborhood, including a medical marijuana dispensary. He has donated more than $1 million to the initiative campaign.
Supporters of the measure have collected 680,000 signatures, far more than the 433,971 required. Lee plans to submit the petitions this month and hopes to qualify for the November ballot. The university's old building a block away will become campaign headquarters.
"This is about politics and a political issue as well as being about business," Lee said.
Indeed, politics and business are intertwined at Oaksterdam. Students receive instruction in the law, politics and advocacy as a prerequisite for taking horticulture, for example.
Other classes include "cannabusiness," dispensary management, distribution, patient relations, cooking with cannabis and making hashish. Graduates receive a certificate that can help them get a job at one of the many medical marijuana dispensaries in California.
The school grows dozens of plants as part of its teaching program but complies with the state's medical marijuana law by serving as the cannabis provider for a patient who has multiple sclerosis.
About 6,000 students have attended the school, Executive Chancellor Dale Clare said. The university has opened satellite campuses in Los Angeles; Sebastopol, Calif.; and, most recently, in Michigan.
"Our main goal is to create activists and give our students the proper knowledge so they can help fight the drug war," said Salwa Ibrahim, Lee's executive assistant. "Politics is the most important thing of everything we do."
By some accounts, marijuana is California's biggest commodity. Lee estimates that it is a $15 billion industry, with medical marijuana making up about $1.5 billion of the total.
In recent years as the state's budget problems have mounted, Lee and other advocates of legalization have attempted to focus the legalization debate on marijuana's huge tax potential.
Last year, voters in Oakland approved a measure sponsored by cannabis activists that imposed a 1.8 percent city tax on medical marijuana. The dispensaries also pay state sales tax.
As part of his strategy in Oakland, Lee has sought to show that the marijuana trade can be good for the city's economic health.
In addition to the university and his dispensary a few blocks away, he started several other businesses, including a gift shop, a coffee shop and a glass blowing shop. Oaksterdam University joined the Chamber of Commerce.
"This was an area of Oakland that was rundown, with a lot of empty store fronts," he said. "We saw that cannabis could help bring traffic and revitalize the district and we could prove ourselves that way."
Kaplan, who was elected to the city council a year ago, said the rapid growth of Oaksterdam University is a boon to the city, much like the recent reopening of a Toyota dealership.
"Oaksterdam University is something we should celebrate," she said after the ribbon-cutting. "It really has become a normalized thing here."
NewsHawk: Ganjarden: 420 MAGAZINE ® - Medical Marijuana Publication & Social Networking
Source: Sphere News
Author: Richard C. Paddock
Contact: Sphere News
Copyright: 2010 AOL News
Website: Cannabis College Redefines 'Higher Education'
The city council member, Rebecca Kaplan, praised the school for helping revive the neighborhood, stimulating the local economy and attracting people to downtown Oakland.
"This is a large, growing and thriving business," she told the crowd at the celebration Thursday evening. "It is bringing customers for all the other businesses. It is a key part of the growth and revitalization of the entire neighborhood."
But this is no ordinary university. It trains students to work in California's booming medical marijuana business. Its mission is to build support for the movement to legalize cannabis.
The college has expanded so quickly since it opened in 2007 that it outgrew its two previous spaces. Its new campus is a three-story, 30,000-square-foot building where it can enroll up to 100 students in its three-month course.
Richard Lee, the founder and president of Oaksterdam University, is a veteran activist who also is sponsoring a statewide ballot measure that would allow adults 21 or older to possess and grow relatively small amounts of marijuana. The initiative also would allow cities and counties to tax and regulate marijuana sales and cultivation.
The name Oaksterdam -- a blend of Oakland and Amsterdam -- first came into use to describe the area of downtown Oakland where more than a dozen medical marijuana dispensaries sprang up a decade ago. Amsterdam is one of the few places in the world where marijuana is sold openly in shops and coffee houses.
Oakland, California's eighth largest city with a population of 400,000, eventually began regulating the dispensaries and pared the number from 14 to four. But the name for the neighborhood stuck. Lee took the name for the university after a visit to Amsterdam to study the marijuana industry there.
Lee calls himself a "Libertarian Republican." He owns several other businesses in the neighborhood, including a medical marijuana dispensary. He has donated more than $1 million to the initiative campaign.
Supporters of the measure have collected 680,000 signatures, far more than the 433,971 required. Lee plans to submit the petitions this month and hopes to qualify for the November ballot. The university's old building a block away will become campaign headquarters.
"This is about politics and a political issue as well as being about business," Lee said.
Indeed, politics and business are intertwined at Oaksterdam. Students receive instruction in the law, politics and advocacy as a prerequisite for taking horticulture, for example.
Other classes include "cannabusiness," dispensary management, distribution, patient relations, cooking with cannabis and making hashish. Graduates receive a certificate that can help them get a job at one of the many medical marijuana dispensaries in California.
The school grows dozens of plants as part of its teaching program but complies with the state's medical marijuana law by serving as the cannabis provider for a patient who has multiple sclerosis.
About 6,000 students have attended the school, Executive Chancellor Dale Clare said. The university has opened satellite campuses in Los Angeles; Sebastopol, Calif.; and, most recently, in Michigan.
"Our main goal is to create activists and give our students the proper knowledge so they can help fight the drug war," said Salwa Ibrahim, Lee's executive assistant. "Politics is the most important thing of everything we do."
By some accounts, marijuana is California's biggest commodity. Lee estimates that it is a $15 billion industry, with medical marijuana making up about $1.5 billion of the total.
In recent years as the state's budget problems have mounted, Lee and other advocates of legalization have attempted to focus the legalization debate on marijuana's huge tax potential.
Last year, voters in Oakland approved a measure sponsored by cannabis activists that imposed a 1.8 percent city tax on medical marijuana. The dispensaries also pay state sales tax.
As part of his strategy in Oakland, Lee has sought to show that the marijuana trade can be good for the city's economic health.
In addition to the university and his dispensary a few blocks away, he started several other businesses, including a gift shop, a coffee shop and a glass blowing shop. Oaksterdam University joined the Chamber of Commerce.
"This was an area of Oakland that was rundown, with a lot of empty store fronts," he said. "We saw that cannabis could help bring traffic and revitalize the district and we could prove ourselves that way."
Kaplan, who was elected to the city council a year ago, said the rapid growth of Oaksterdam University is a boon to the city, much like the recent reopening of a Toyota dealership.
"Oaksterdam University is something we should celebrate," she said after the ribbon-cutting. "It really has become a normalized thing here."
NewsHawk: Ganjarden: 420 MAGAZINE ® - Medical Marijuana Publication & Social Networking
Source: Sphere News
Author: Richard C. Paddock
Contact: Sphere News
Copyright: 2010 AOL News
Website: Cannabis College Redefines 'Higher Education'
