OAKLAND, Calif. (AP) – You know you’re in a different kind of college when a teaching assistant sets five marijuana plants down in the middle of a lab and no one blinks a bloodshot eye.

Welcome to Oaksterdam University, a new trade school where higher education takes on a whole new meaning.

The school prepares people for jobs in California’s thriving medical marijuana industry. For $200 and the cost of two required textbooks, students learn how to cultivate and cook with cannabis, study which strains of pot are best for certain ailments, and are instructed in the legalities of a business that is against the law in the eyes of the federal government.

“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,” said Richard Lee, 45, an activist and pot-dispensary owner who founded the school in a downtown storefront last fall.

So far, 60 students have completed the two-day weekend course, which is sold out through May. At the end of the class, students are given a take-home test, with the highest scorer – make that “top scorer” – earning the title of class valedictorian.

Students gave various reasons for enrolling. Some said they were simply curious. Others said they wanted tips for growing their own weed, although judging from the questions, a few were ready for the graduate seminar Lee recently added to the curriculum.

Jeff Sanders, 52, said he has been buying medical marijuana since 2003, but wants to open a dispensary in the San Joaquin Valley because he doesn’t like having to drive up to San Francisco and paying the markup.

“I see it as a good thing. You are giving back to the community,” Sanders said.

Oaksterdam U draws its name from the jokey nickname for a section of Oakland where some of California’s earliest medical marijuana dispensaries took root.

The nickname in turn was inspired by the city of Amsterdam, in Holland, where pot use is tolerated.

At one point, the Oaksterdam neighborhood had at least 15 clubs and coffee shops selling pot, a number that dwindled to four when the city started issuing permits and collecting taxes from them a few years ago.

California was the first of a dozen states that have legalized marijuana use for patients with a doctor’s recommendation. Despite periodic raids by federal drug agents and the threat of prosecution, clubs and cooperatives where customers can buy the drug of their choice have proliferated; California has 300 to 400, according to advocacy groups.

Entry-level workers are paid a little more than minimum wage, while “bud tenders,” can make over $50,000 a year, and owners and top managers more than $100,000, Lee said. But there’s also a certain amount of risk – and not just financial, but legal.

Michael Chapman, an assistant agent in charge with the Drug Enforcement Agency’s San Francisco office, said authorities are aware of Oaksterdam U and don’t see any reason to shut it down. Talking about marijuana is not illegal, and while a small amount of pot is kept on the premises, the DEA tries “to concentrate our case work on the most significant violators,” he said.

Still, Chapman said he doesn’t like Lee’s effort to wrap cannabis education in a cap and gown.

“I think they are sending the wrong message out to the community and it’s something that could only facilitate criminal behavior,” he said.

AP-ES-02-25-08 1610EST