Sample buds of marijuana flowers are displayed in glass containers at the 3D Cannabis Center in Denver on January 1, 2014. (File/UPI/Gary C. Caskey) | License Photo

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz., June 3 (UPI) -- A formally-trained chef is serving up lessons about how to cook marijuana to Arizona residents.

Payton Curry, who currently cooks at the Brat Haus in Scottsdale, is able to get medical marijuana legally to help treat his anxiety and depression. He says that medical pot improved his life, and now he wants to help other qualified people learn to cook with marijuana.


"I know that it worked for me, and for me to be able to stop drinking," Curry told 3TV. "If you don't have your card, you don't get it."

Marijuana extracts have been legal in Arizona since March, and Curry, who trained at the Culinary Institute of America in New York, has received many requests from people who want to learn how to prepare them.

"Churches, lawyers, police officers, a fire marshal," he said when asked to name some of his potential students.

Curry's students learn how to make smoothies with medical marijuana and other natural substances like honey.

Learning to prepare marijuana properly is a good way to avoid overdoing it, according to Curry.

"I want the medicinal properties of this," he said. "I don't want to get stoned out of my mind and eat Cheetos with peanut butter and listen to the Grateful Dead."