APRIL FOOL: 'Schools of Dope' campus envisioned in Sarasota

A charter school intended to train high schoolers for careers in the recreational-marijuana industry has applied to co-locate on one of three possible public high school campuses in Manatee or Sarasota counties under Florida’s little-known “Schools of Dope’’ program.

An add-on to the controversial “Schools of Hope’’ program, the 2022-enacted law envisions eventual voter-approval of broader recreational marijuana use in Florida, serviced by a state-run and taxed network of retail stores similar to Alcoholic Beverage Control stores for liquor in such places as North Carolina and Virginia. The program aims to set up eight to 10 such state-sanctioned charter schools statewide.

“We’re going to need to go from zero to 60 on these sales, managerial and marketing – well, maybe not so much the marketing – positions when this ultimately gets approved by the voters, which it will,’’ said Ramona Slacker, a consultant with the think-tank Four20-4-U. “We need to get these people trained. Remember, today's 80-year-olds were at Woodstock.'’

School officials had no immediate comment on the request to occupy educational space in a high school with excess capacity.

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