Our Story begins in the winter of 2020. Stacy Bobak Certified Cannabis Educator and Steph Massey Certified Cannabis Educator (www.stephiemassey.com) had just started their own independent businesses while connecting with individual clients.  They quickly noticed that support systems for Cannabis Educators did not exist. Leaning on all of their combined knowledge as young breast cancer survivors, they combed through their own experiences as patients. Both Stacy and Steph had their individual Cancer cases presented to a “multi-disciplinary” panel of experts who review individual cases, as it relates to cancer treatment options. The opportunity to have many health care professionals review their cases had given them some reassurance for the course of their personalized treatment plans. 

 

These two women wondered, “where is the ‘support system’ for Cannabis Educators?” and “who can I chat with when I have a difficult case and need expert advice?” Locally, there were only a few doctors and pharmacists that would even acknowledge cannabis as a medicine. Let alone recognize and respect a cannabis educator whose job it was to help educate about cannabis as medicine and help patients who wanted to access it for medicinal purposes. 

 

They decided to reach out to everyone they knew in the Canadian cannabis industry. Although their network was somewhat limited (being only 1.5 years into federal legalization of adult-use cannabis in Canada), Stacy and Steph instantly found that many people, specifically women, were very interested in joining a “collective” of cannabis educators. After only a couple of meetings, our group was introduced to Shawna Dunbar's dream project.  Shawna, another certified cannabis educator, working in clinical practice, had tried to launch EduCanNation a few times over the last few years and opened up to the women of the collective about her struggles to meet like-minded people who would help bring her vision of a standard of practice and standardized education to the cannabis industry. 

 

Steph and Stacy quickly understood that EduCanNation shared and believed deeply in their mission of elevating knowledge of this plant medicine and making the information accessible to patients, healthcare professionals, and the general population.

 

Very quickly, this group of amazing women became deeply aligned and got to work. Shawna, Steph, and Stacy are the Executive Directors of EduCanNation Cannabis Education Inc., a not-for-profit organization in Canada. EduCanNation (ECN) has an all-female Board of Directors who care deeply about the medical cannabis patient and ALL of the struggles that patients face. ECN’s mission is to provide the highest standard of responsible cannabis education. 

 

Fast forward to today, in our first year our organization’s board of directors has spent time building internal policies and procedures, defining roles, meeting with lawyers and accountants, and insurance experts. We care deeply about laying strong foundations under this organization. That takes time.  We have been building educational programs and content for iMD health/CloudMD.  We offer continuing education on a weekly basis for cannabis educators within our membership, focusing specifically on difficult cases and business practices as an educator. Inside of our private Facebook group, we bring in experts and we discuss topics that educators NEED to be aware of in this ever-changing industry. We have patients, industry experts, and healthcare professionals whom we consult with on a regular basis. We continue to meet with industry experts and professionals throughout the first year of this business in order to introduce EduCanNation. We do this to make them aware that we are here, doing the work, to set a standard for cannabis education and the practice of providing the education to others. We continue to listen, learn, and discuss issues of concern within the industry as it relates to the patient's journey with cannabis.  

 

EduCanNation is a Canadian Registered Nonprofit Organization and we care deeply for patients and their journey with cannabis medicine.