7 years ago I found cannabis therapeutics and healed my own body from 3 orthopedic surgeries and the diagnosis of fibromyalgia I received when the operations were unsuccessful. CBD oils and micro doses of THC did more to heal me than decades of drugs or therapies. I am not alone. Many nurses and other healthcare professionals have found cannabis to be the most effective tool in the kit for their own body-mind-spirit medicine.

Despite severe stigma and the ramifications of a positive drug test in a hospital, more nurses are walking away from traditional healthcare and experimenting with cannabinoids. Easing legalities and access in 36 states help them find a deeper level of root cause healing, nourishing their endocannabinoid system, which then helps their ECS fine tune the other physiologies.

This may be just in time. 1:5 healthcare workers have left traditional settings due to the perpetual pandemic and declining morale in hospital environments. Many witnessed deaths on an unimaginable scale, and the resources and support needed to stay are nonexistent. Now diagnosed with post-traumatic stress, they are leaving the scene of the crime in droves. One RN turned novelist penned a book that tells the world of the atrocities experienced by front line workers in The Year of the Nurse. COVID has become a war-time battle of the soul indeed.

I am confident that growth will continue in all channels of holistic nursing as nurses see the futility of healthcare in managing chronic diseases of modern life (metabolic syndrome, obesity, and autoimmune conditions). Nurses want to see people heal – to get better and improve. This is rare in conventional care, which is why millions of patients have already incorporated CBD and THC into their care plans. It grants health and wellbeing like we’ve never seen before, and if you couple cannabinoids with lifestyle medicine, we can truly change the paradigm.

Nurses need to follow this patient led movement as guides and coaches. Nurses are smart, effective leaders and educators, and are key to shortening the experimentation time to make cannabis medicine effective. That’s why the National Council of State Boards of Nursing (NCSBN) created the essential principles to guiding patient care with cannabinoids. When nurses learn, patients will be better served, bolstering compliance and engagement in self-care. Teaching patients how to use cannabis as a facilitator to holistic health, working collaboratively with prescribers to reduce RX, and emphasizing nutrition and movement is deeply rewarding.

Patients have no idea how to find a dispensary, shop for products for their specific illness, to begin a dosing titration schedule, watch for side effects and RX interactions, and know how to track, adjust, and monitor for efficacy. That’s what we do! We hold tremendous value within the cannabis industry, and as Treasurer of the American Cannabis Nurses Association I am blessed to connect with hundreds of nurses who are motivated by a higher purpose.

In closing, I’d like to give voice to some of our team members and Holistic Caring Coaches. Here are some of their stories and powerful reasons WHY: 1 – Sherri, 2 – Tasha, 3 – Michele, Carey Lee, Denise, other LCHC coaches…