If you do your shopping at Walmart, the next time you visit you may notice a walk-in clinic has popped up. It won’t be just any regular clinic, but a clinic inside which licensed medical practitioners will be providing information and guidance to prospective medical cannabis consumers. 

Walmart has teamed up with Spectrum Therapeutics to provide everyday people with the information they crave about a plant that has been legalized in 33 U.S. states for medical purposes. Spectrum therapeutics is a leading Canadian cannabis cultivator Canopy Growth’s medical branch.

The company is collaborating with Tree of Knowledge – a company that co-brands with companies to deliver consumers the highest quality products – to dispense online education sessions regarding cannabis products. 

The information will be fed from Jack Nathan Health, which is a partner clinic of Tree that boasts locations in 74 Walmart convenience stores throughout Canada; Walmart operates 400 Canadian brick-and-mortars.

With 1.5 millions patients being served at the healthcare clinics housed inside Walmart every year, the cannabis educational sessions have the potential to reach a broad scope of people.

“The need for patient and provider cannabis education has grown substantially since legalization one year ago,” says Tree of Knowledge chairman Michael Caridi. “This partnership will launch targeted educational campaigns for patients in addition to providing training and support to their healthcare providers.”

Walmart medical cannabis education will come in the form of live webinars and e-learning modules

Currently, there is a lack of education about medical cannabis from licensed doctors, many of whom are still getting to grips with the rollout of legal weed in Canada.

The Director at Tree of Knowledge, Dr. Kevin Rod, says that the training will comprise numerous e-learning modules. Each module will be designed to provide individuals with bite-sized, valuable pieces of information that they can access via an online platform.

Dr. Rod – who is also the director of Toronto Poly Clinic multidisciplinary pain management clinics – is preparing live webinars that will hone in on various subjects that may boggle the minds of first-time consumers; e.g. using medical cannabis for chronic pain management, reducing opioid use, how to dose properly, obtaining a prescription for medical cannabis, etc.

Joining Dr. Rod in his quest to enlighten the general public with Walmart’s cannabis education sessions is the Chief Medical Officer of Canopy Growth, Dr. Mark Ware, as well as Canopy’s Director of Global Medical Services, Dr. Danial Schecter.

Patients can have fun while they learn by watching the animated video series to absorb important information. Everything they learn can be jotted down in the provided customizable journal, which will also aid new medical cannabis patients in monitoring how much medicine they use per day and its effects.

Walmart cannabis education program to tackle grey area in Canada’s nascent industry

Since the rules laid out by reach Canadian territory or province’s College of Physicians and Surgeons tends to differ, the process of obtaining medical cannabis in Canada from a licensed doctor is unpredictable.

Healthcare practitioners can view language recently published by the Canadian Medical Protective Association to better understand the requirements for prescribing patients with medical cannabis. However, no online training platform existed until now.

“The education for doctors on medical cannabis is still very limited,” says Dr. Rod. “Health Canada has resources that are mostly focused on research findings. The College of Family Physicians of Canada has provided a guide for physicians which needs to be updated and adapted to new products and modes of delivery. The provincial colleges, like the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario, have provided some practical guidelines on prescribing, but there is still a large room left for further educating physicians on this subject, which is one of the pillars of our focus and activity.”

Doctors who wish to educate themselves and patients on the topic of medical cannabis in the “Great White North” may also consider logging online to the Cannabis Legalization and Regulation Branch at Health Canada, where they can access peer-reviewed reports.