Cultivating Criminals?

Or instead, you could do what 45-year-old Richard Lee is doing: Lee founded Oaksterdam University in a downtown Oakland storefront last fall. He is a marijuana activist and pot-dispensary owner who prepares his students for jobs in California's thriving medical marijuana industry.

In the Globe article, Lee said:

My basic idea is to try to professionalize the industry and have it taken seriously as a real industry, just like beer and distilling hard alcohol.

But there's no comparison between alcohol and marijuana, Mr. Lee. While California was the first of a dozen states to have legalized marijuana use for patients with a doctor's recommendation, all alcohol requires is to be purchased by someone of legal age. Moreover, the disparity in the laws regarding either of the substances indicate the difference in the potential harm. I'm not advocating alcohol, but there's a reason why marijuana is deemed as the gateway drug.

The course costs $200 plus two required textbooks. Students learn how to cultivate and cook cannabis, study different strains and are instructed in the legalities.

While I find the objective of job training as valid, I'm concerned that as students are cultivating weed, Lee himself is cultivating criminals; but the type of criminals who are familiarized with the technicalities of the law, and use it to their advantage.

I don't think there's a filter for any of the negative outcomes that will surely arise from Oaksterdam University. Yes, many of the students will be certified, and have a higher chance of getting a job (a decent one at that considering "bud tenders" make an average annual salary of $50,000), but ALL of the students would be equipped with the knowledge to produce marijuana plants, which is still illegal in many parts of the country, and will have the knowledge to evade the law because of technicalities that they'd learn at Oaksterdam. Furthermore, are there any prerequisites for registering, such as background checks for criminal records?

I don't mean to sound like the uptight do-gooder, but this institution just seems to validate the ways in which the law can be manipulated.