Minnesota Cannabis College Featured in GreenState: Why Cannabis Workforce Training Matters

Minnesota's approach to cannabis workforce development is getting national attention. This week, GreenState, the cannabis journalism outlet published by Hearst, ran a feature examining why workforce training has become one of the most pressing questions in the legal cannabis industry, and why Minnesota may be answering it better than any other state.

The article, written by our board trustee Kasey Kollross, looks at the industry's inflection point: national cannabis employment declined for the first time in 2026, even as newer markets like Minnesota continue to grow. With more than 300 cannabis licenses now issued in our state and roughly 1,400 preliminary approvals in the pipeline, thousands of jobs are on their way, and every one of them requires a trained worker behind it.

What makes Minnesota different, the piece argues, is that our lawmakers saw this coming. The 2023 legalization bill built workforce funding directly into the law through two grant programs: CanTrain, administered by the Department of Employment and Economic Development, and CanGrow, run through the Office of Cannabis Management's Division of Social Equity. Few states have paired legalization with this kind of deliberate workforce infrastructure.

The article also highlights something we believe deeply: no single institution builds a workforce. Across the Twin Cities, a network of community organizations is creating on-ramps into Minnesota's licensed market from different directions, compliance navigation for entrepreneurs, credential preparation, and free, hands-on training like ours. Minnesota Cannabis College is proud to be part of that ecosystem as a CanTrain-supported organization, alongside partners doing remarkable work across the state.

As the article puts it, workforce education is the connective tissue between equity policy on paper and equity outcomes in practice. That's the work our nearly 50 inaugural retail track graduates students, and the work our next cohort will continue.

Read the full article at GreenState: https://www.greenstate.com/business/cannabis-has-a-workforce-problem-minnesota-may-have-the-answer/

Want to be part of this work? Explore upcoming training programs or support free cannabis education through our Give 8/28 campaign on August 28.