About 300 educators, parents and community leaders took part in a St. Paul cannabis education summit this week, aimed at giving schools the tools to talk to kids about marijuana risks just as new state classroom requirements take effect. The gathering brought together national and local experts on youth cannabis use and prevention, with organizers pushing a simple goal: make sure young people get accurate information from trusted adults instead of relying on friends or the internet.
The summit, now in its third year according to CBS Minnesota, comes as Minnesota schools work to implement new cannabis education requirements taking effect during the current school year. Kevin Doyle, president and CEO of the Hazelden Betty Ford Graduate School of Addiction Studies, said the state's educational requirements make formal conversations about cannabis with students necessary, and that educators should feel more comfortable and confident having those discussions. Doyle's organization has reported that more teens are seeking treatment for cannabis abuse, per Hazelden Betty Ford.
A Free Curriculum Built for the Classroom
Among the resources educators are hearing about is a free curriculum shared by a Stanford researcher at the summit. Stanford's REACH Lab offers a Cannabis Awareness & Prevention Toolkit with resources created by educators, parents and researchers aimed at preventing middle and high school students' use of cannabis, according to Stanford Medicine. The toolkit's Smart Talk curriculum includes two elementary-school lessons, five middle-school lessons and five high-school lessons, and it was built by the REACH Lab, its Youth Action Board, educators, healthcare providers and scientists across the country. It's also now available in Spanish.
The lessons go beyond basic warnings, addressing misperceptions about cannabis, strengthening refusal skills against marketing and peer influence, tackling the stress that can lead to use, and improving coping skills, the Stanford materials note. Stanford also offers free curriculum training sessions for educators who want to bring Smart Talk into their classrooms. The summit's broader cannabis education information covers how marijuana affects brain development along with mental and physical health risks, reflecting growing concern that cannabis has become more accessible to young people.
What Minnesota Law Now Requires
Minnesota law specifies six subject areas for model programs and separately requires comprehensive school instruction on those topics, along with two additional requirements. St. Paul Public Schools has told the station it plans to use Smart Talk to meet that requirement. State law directs the commissioner of education, in consultation with the commissioners of health and human services and other experts, to identify one or more model programs that can be used to educate middle- and high-school students about the health effects of cannabis and substance use, according to a partial excerpt of Minnesota Statutes section 120B.215. The Minnesota Department of Education's health education page states the requirement is to be implemented statewide by the 2026-27 school year.
Mixed Signals in the Youth Data
The push for more structured cannabis education arrives amid discussion of youth cannabis use and access. A Minnesota Department of Health 2025 report puts self-reported past-12-month cannabis use among Minnesota students overall at 6.3%.
At the same time, a 2025 state youth-data summary describes a reversal in another trend: eighth-, ninth- and eleventh-grade students reported an increase in perceiving that using cannabis once or twice a week is moderately to greatly harmful, according to the Minnesota Department of Health. The St. Paul summit wrapped up Monday afternoon, with organizers framing the two-day push as one piece of a longer statewide effort to get ahead of those shifting numbers before they translate into classroom policy gaps.
A Separate Summit at Hazelden
The St. Paul gathering isn't the only recent cannabis-focused education event in Minnesota. The Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation Graduate School held its own first cannabis summit, though that event's attendees primarily included the nonprofit's graduate students along with undergraduates from nearby universities, according to KARE 11. Speakers at that event included researchers from the University of Minnesota, Hamline University and Mitchell Hamline School of Law, among others, reflecting a wider circle of institutions now weighing in on how the state talks to young people about marijuana.
