Cannabis is now part of clinical practice, patient care, and industry — whether the people involved feel prepared for it or not.
Physicians are being asked about cannabis by patients who are already using it. Nurses are navigating dosing questions without formal training. Pharmacists are fielding interactions they weren’t taught in school. PhDs are working in a field where the science moves faster than the textbooks. And cannabis industry professionals — the people in dispensaries, in product development, in patient-facing roles — are often working from incomplete or inaccurate information, passed down from sources that were never rigorous to begin with.
The result is a gap between what cannabis can do and what the people working with it actually know.
That gap costs patients the opportunity for improved health.To close that gap, CReDO has partnered with MM411, the world’s leading online provider of medical cannabis education, to deliver a curriculum built from Dr. Russo’s own scientific work and peer-reviewed journal articles — including three certificate programs: Ethan Russo, MD Advanced Certificate of Cannabis Pharmacology & Therapeutics, The Foundations of Cannabis Therapeutics, and the Cannabis Sports Medicine Certificate.
Most cannabis education stops at the surface. Our courses go deeper — built on decades of peer-reviewed research and clinical trial experience, and taught by the researcher the rest of the field turns to when they need a straight answer.
Every course in this curriculum starts the same way: Dr. Russo goes into the primary literature — thousands of peer-reviewed studies spanning pharmacology, clinical trials, and decades of his own original research — and pulls out what actually matters. Not a survey of everything that's been published, but the findings that change how a clinician prescribes, a researcher designs a study, or an industry professional advises a patient. It is science translated into practice, by the person who produced much of the science.
That translation is backed by the citation, not just the claim. Every major point in the curriculum is sourced to the peer-reviewed article behind it, hyperlinked directly in the course material — so when something raises a question, the answer isn't “trust us,” it's the study itself, one click away. That level of transparency is rare in continuing education generally, and it's the reason we chose MM411 as our partner: they share our commitment to getting the science right, and of the online cannabis education providers we've evaluated, they're the only one we've found that supports fully hyperlinked, source-linked coursework at this scale.
Within MM411's broader catalog, the CReDO courses — built exclusively by Dr. Russo and Nishi Whiteley, MS — represent what Chris DeVol, MM411's CEO, calls the “crown jewel” of the offering. They were built for professionals who need to do more than believe in cannabis — they need to understand it at the level the science actually demands.
The Certificate of Advanced Cannabis Pharmacology and Therapeutics is a professional-level curriculum built on the same scientific foundation that underlies CReDO's drug development work and peer-reviewed research. It is not continuing education fluff. It is not advocacy dressed up as science. It is the most rigorous — and most rigorously cited — cannabinoid science curriculum available to working professionals, written and taught by Ethan Russo, MD, with course content prepared exclusively by CReDO Science. Nishi Whiteley, MS, co-founder of CReDO, teaches her own course within the curriculum and leads the Q&A sessions at the close of each of Dr. Russo's modules — bringing the same practical, science-grounded perspective she applies to CReDO's drug development and education work.
That means the course reflects sixteen years at GW Pharmaceuticals, twenty-plus Phase I–III clinical trials, seventy-plus peer-reviewed publications, and the theoretical frameworks — including the Entourage Effect and Clinical Endocannabinoid Deficiency — that have shaped how the entire field thinks about cannabis medicine.
There is no comparable course. There is no comparable instructor. And there is no comparable citation trail.
Read Developing Medical Cannabis Competencies, by Zolotov et al. Dr. Russo was a contributing author to this important journal article outlining the critical need for cannabis and ECS education.
The Russo Certificates and courses were built for professionals who need to do more than believe in cannabis — they need to understand it.
Who are already being asked about cannabis by their patients and want to answer with confidence, accuracy, and clinical grounding.
Who are working in or adjacent to the cannabinoid science space and need a rigorous, evidence-based foundation to build on.
Including patient educators, dispensary staff, product developers, and social workers — who work in customer-facing or advisory roles and owe their clients accurate, science-based information.
Who support patients using cannabis and want to be genuinely informed rather than relying on secondhand sources.
If your work touches cannabis medicine — in any capacity — this course was designed with you in mind.
For students who choose the full Certificate program, the curriculum goes beyond coursework.
Once a month, certificate students join a live, one-hour Q&A session with Dr. Ethan Russo, Nishi Whiteley, and Chris DeVol — Founder and CEO of MM411, and the woman whose commitment to preserving Dr. Russo's scientific legacy made this curriculum possible. Together, they are the people who built this curriculum and who are actively working at the frontier of cannabinoid science education every day.
These sessions are not a replay of course content. Each month, the group reviews new peer-reviewed research as it is published — keeping the curriculum current in a field that moves fast. Students bring their own questions, topic-specific and general. Relevant policy changes, like the ongoing federal rescheduling process, are discussed as they develop.
In other words: you don't just learn what Dr. Russo knows. You stay current alongside him.
For clinicians managing cannabis patients, researchers tracking a fast-moving field, or industry professionals who need to stay ahead of both the science and the regulatory landscape — this monthly access is the kind of continuing education that actually continues.
Certificate students also gain something that no amount of solo study can provide: a cohort. MM411 attracts serious professionals from around the world — clinicians, researchers, and industry leaders who are as committed to getting this right as you are. Current graduates span four countries and growing, and the alumni network expands with every cohort. The connections students make inside the Advanced Certificate of Cannabis Pharmacology & Therapeutics program — with each other, and with Dr. Russo, Nishi, and Chris — extend well beyond the final module.
In a field that is still finding its professional footing, knowing the right people matters. CReDO and MM411 put you in the room with them.
There are many people who teach about cannabis. There is one Ethan Russo.
He is the researcher other cannabis researchers cite when they need to get something right. He is the person Raphael Mechoulam — the scientist who first isolated THC — called a colleague. He has lectured or consulted on cannabis pharmacology in 44 countries, served on the US Pharmacopoeia Panel on Cannabinoids, and spent sixteen years as Senior Medical Advisor to GW Pharmaceuticals — the company that brought the first cannabis-based prescription medicines to market.
When he teaches, he brings everything: the depth of his published research, the hard-won wisdom of twenty years in clinical practice, and the insights gathered from countless conversations with patients about their lived experience with cannabis.
He is, by every account, an exceptional communicator — with a rare gift for taking the most complex pharmacological concepts and distilling them into their most essential, relevant points. He makes the science accessible without ever dumbing it down, reaching clinicians, researchers, and industry professionals equally — meeting each where they are without losing the rigor that makes the content worth having. The difference between learning cannabis science from Dr. Russo and learning it anywhere else is the difference between hearing it from the source and hearing it third-hand.
MM411's founder, Chris DeVol, understands the weight of that. The Russo course offering was built with a specific commitment: to preserve Dr. Russo's scientific legacy and ensure that his life's work in cannabinoid pharmacology remains accessible, teachable, and growing — for the professionals and patients who will need it long into the future.
The Q&A sessions at the end of each module are led by Nishi Whiteley, MS — co-founder of CReDO, peer-reviewed co-author, and author of Chronic Relief. Her role is to do what she does throughout CReDO's work: bridge the gap between rigorous science and safe, practical application. Students don't just hear the science — they get to ask questions of the people who built it.
The Russo Certificate courses and webinars are offered exclusively through MM411 and hosted at its own dedicated platform, where you can explore the full curriculum, review course details, and enroll directly.
Ready to go deeper?
If you are a medical practice, hospital, dispensary group, cannabis company, or educational institution interested in enrolling a team — we'd like to hear from you. Group enrollment and organizational licensing may be available.
