The Cannabis Nurses

The history of The Cannabis Nurses + CO begins with Kala Sanmartin + Heather Wilkinson. Friends since junior high in the small rural town of Ryley, Alberta, Kala and Heather shared apartments, feral cats, and many common interests and life experiences. They started their journeys into the workforce at Grant MacEwan University; Kala for Nursing and Heather for Kinesiology (and later Recreation Therapy). Their journeys into cannabis, however, occurred at different times but were very much intertwined.

Kala found cannabis at her rock bottom. After suffering from trauma & stress-induced insomnia in her early twenties, her doctor prescribed her sleeping pills which followed her for nearly 6 years. After getting married, she unexpectedly became pregnant and immediately flushed her pills down the toilet. Despite the first trimester fatigue, Kala did not sleep for three weeks straight and lost her baby. She was absolutely devastated. Feeling let down by the health care system that encouraged her long term use of such dangerous medications, Kala decided to explore more natural methods and turned to cannabis with the support of her husband, a recreational cannabis consumer. Wanting to do things the legal and scientific way, she dove deep into the research and drove down to Calgary to get her medical prescription. What she discovered was nothing short of amazing. The discovery of the endocannabinoid system along with the hugely positive effect cannabis was having on her health had Kala deeply questioning her future career path. After birthing her second son, Kala decided it was time. She launched her private practice, The Cannabis Nurses, and after a brief casual stint nursing with AHS in home care, she took the leap of faith and put all her efforts towards building her cannabis nursing practice.

This was about the time that Heather’s journey into cannabis began. When her own rock bottom occurred. Heather lost her parents in a car accident at the age of 14. She moved to Ryley and managed to live a fairly normal teenage life (with the loving support of Kala and her twin sister Nicole) but never properly processed her grief. That grief hit her like a ton of bricks after the birth of her second child. It was not an easy pregnancy, culminating in an excruciating 10 day hospital admission for kidney stones at 9 months followed by a traumatic birth with hemorrhaging. To top it off, Heather’s daughter landed in the NICU for a week at five days old when she became lethargic and hypotonic. Heather felt the absence of her parents and postpartum anxiety ravaged. Kala met her with open arms and an offer to be one of the first clients in her new cannabis nursing practice. Cannabis was the necessary tool to process her grief and soothe her anxieties and became the catalyst to leaving her triggering work environment to blaze trails alongside Kala.

What started as a dream to empower others to use cannabis in an educated and unapologetic way has since grown to a practice with attention from a national level. Kala wrote and launched the Holistic Cannabis Nursing Program in partnership with the Canadian Institute of Integrative Nursing Development and Education (CIINDE) on April 20th, 2023 and has since recruited several nurses who have taken her program. The Cannabis Nurses + CO is currently expanding its practice across Canada through its contract work with Veterans Affairs Canada and continues to promote cannabis education to the general public through Cannaware Workshops and 1:1 cannabis coaching. Although life had thrown Kala and Heather some extremely difficult hurdles to overcome, they were able to overcome the tough times by leaning on each other and learning how to effectively nourish their endocannabinoid systems. This ultimately became the motivation to grow The Cannabis Nurses + CO into what it is today and they have no plans on stopping anytime soon!