Last week, Cannabis Trainers, a compliance education and training services provider, announced their launch into the California market with their ServSafe® and Sell- SMaRT™ training programs. Ahead of the launch of California’s adult-use cannabis market in 2018, the programs will train employees in the areas of food safety and retail sales.

Maureen McNamara, founder of Cannabis Trainers, says that training and certification of employees is crucial to regulatory compliance in the cannabis space. “In few other industries could a frontline employee crumble an entire business with a single mistake,” says McNamara. “We aim to honor California’s cannabis pioneers by fusing their decades of hard work with cutting-edge approaches to safety and compliance.” She has over 25 years of professional training experience and has trained and certified over 15,000 employees across a handful of industries. In 2014, she launched Cannabis Trainers in Colorado and the following year in Illinois.

According to the press release, their ServSafe® program is essentially a food safety certification course based on food safety research and the FDA food code, but tailored to the cannabis industry for retailers and manufacturers of infused products. In 2015, their Sell-SMaRT™ program was the first to gain approval from the Colorado Department of Revenue Marijuana Enforcement Division’s Responsible Vendor Program, becoming the first state-certified cannabis vendor-training program. That course is an education program for budtenders and managers covering consumer safety issues, checking IDs and other key retail regulatory compliance issues.

According to McNamara, their Sell-SMaRT™ program is designed and customized to each state’s rules for cannabis sales. “We’ll be customizing our content to ensure it’s relevant to California regulations,” says McNamara. “We comb through the rules and pull out information pertinent to the responsible sale of cannabis in each state.” They’ll be doing the same for the ServSafe® program as well. “Although it’s a nationally recognized program based on the FDA food code, states may choose to create additional restrictions for cannabis infused products.”

She says they look at their programs like a translation for cannabis businesses; helping employees and managers make sense of the complex and confusing rules for cannabis compliance. “Most rules are written in legalese and can be a challenge to understand, says McNamara. “We simplify it and make it approachable and easy to digest.” Looking past California, McNamara says Cannabis Trainers is looking to expand to a few other states. She says their course curricula are based on state laws, but they try their best to incorporate regulatory compliance issues on the local level. “Our course information is based on state law,” says McNamara. “And, we realize local counties and municipalities may create stricter regulations and we do our best to include those variances in our courses.” Cannabis Trainers has incorporated variations in local rules in Colorado successfully.

“In addition to California, we’ll be customizing our courses for Nevada to launch this year as well,” says McNamara. “In 2018, we aim to provide professional development and certification courses to even more states.” McNamara says they have entered talks with teams in Ohio, Massachusetts and Maryland and are also actively looking to expand into Canada’s market. Their first California class will be the 3.5-hour September 20, 2017 ServSafe® course for cannabis producers at East Anaheim Community Center.