On June 26 and 27, the CannaReps team had the delightful opportunity to train an engaged group of 21 eager learners. This was the first time we facilitated a course in a 2 day format, and packed the days with helpful education and skills development. This time we had an eclectic mix of people from licensed producers to new retailers, as well as new and experienced budtenders.
We feel that to truly understand and appreciate cannabis, it is important to know the history and culture of the plant. We presented for the first time a cannabis landrace map to the class, and concepts of how indica and sativa plants were developed by geographical isolation, genetic differentiation, and environmental adaptation; as well as addressed popular misconceptions of indica and sativa. Armed with foundational knowledge, our learners were able to study cannabis with a holistic perspective. After completing a few ID Challenges, we noticed proud moments of being able to correctly identify cannabis varieties.
The biggest take away from this round is that as cannabis industry professionals, we need to transition from providing therapeutic guidance to educating our customers and empowering them to make informed choices when choosing cannabis products. At first, there was resistance, as inherently we all want to help and it is tempting to talk about cannabis’s capabilities of managing medical conditions. However, Adolfo shared his positive perspective on the new and regulated role of the budtender. Our job is to educate the user with safe usage and to refer users with a medical need through to our medical systems. Finding descriptors to talk about cannabis under the new framework was initially challenging, but as a group, we collaborated on eloquent and proper wording that could be used in our customer interactions to make them feel excited.
I would like to give a special thank you to our engaged learners, as they were all friendly, respectful and contributed to rich discussions. I could feel the excitement, motivation, and confidence in the class grow as our learners couldn’t wait to apply what they learned into the real world.
On the last day, we hosted a special guest from CBC radio and allowed him to record a session while learning about the importance of proper portioning and proper guidance in a legal framework. Listen to his review of the course here.