One of the biggest stories of the year has been percolating under the radar it seems. It has to do with the most respected profession in the USA, and that is Nurses.
When I walked into a room filled with over 200 Cannabis Nurses in late February 2019 at the San Diego Harbor Island Sheraton, I felt the Earth move under my feet (thank you Carole King).
Yes, the paradigm shift was physically and spiritually uplifting. These nurses had come to San Diego to learn more about the medicinal qualities of the Cannabis plant and to drill down into exactly why it helps so many of their patients with varying illnesses and concerns. They had come to learn more about the EndoCannabinoid System, how it regulates every other system in the human body and how it features receptors that are amenable to Cannabis. All attendees were baffled by the fact that medical schools do not extensively teach their students about ECS – an important discovery made by Israeli Professor and Researcher and “Father of THC,” Dr. Raphael Mechoulam in 1996.
As Nurse Heather Manus says on the CNNC website, “Knowledge of the Endocannabinoid System and Cannabinoid Therapeutics is merely the tip of the iceberg; actually only scratching the surface, of the top, of the tip, of the iceberg. We have much more to learn and discover; it’s exciting and fascinating to explore the unknown inner-workings of ourselves and the human/plant relationship with Cannabis that is driving current science and research.“
San Diego Councilwoman Barbara Bry, who is running to be our next Mayor, gave the Opening Remarks. She welcomed the nurses and acknowledged the importance of further Cannabis studies. She mentioned that San Diego is on the forefront of these studies and features many dispensaries that service people with medical Cannabis products.
Some of the attendees became Cannabis nurses after their own personal experiences. Nurse Fame spoke about how she had been severely injured in an automobile crash that took the life of her 15-year-old son. She described how she had awakened from a concussion to find her son was dead beside her and that the car she was pinned under was on fire. Her road to recovery was long, arduous and accompanied by the healing properties of Cannabis. Nurse Fame’s testimonial was only one of many.
Nurses earned accreditation by attending the CNNC (Cannabis Nurses Networking Conference) now in its fourth year. Videos of all the speakers will soon be available for all the nurses and medical professionals who were unable to participate in this year’s conference.
Nurse Heather is the person primarily responsible for creating the CNNC and standing on the front lines of the Cannabis issue, even when it wasn’t such a popular issue as it is today, and gathering so many caring professionals under one roof. She’s a Power House and a Goddess, as her husband, attorney Ken Sobel, tells everyone. He is rather a big deal, too, as an attorney who has argued for Cannabis and winning several landmark cases.
It was a great gathering of respected nurses and now the work of educating people about ECS and Cannabis continues.
