About P.A.C.E.
The Professional Academy of Cannabis Education (PACE) is an institution built specifically for clinical cannabis education — designed by the clinicians who have spent 30 years developing the science, for the healthcare professionals who need it most. PACE is exclusively oriented toward healthcare professionals — for clinical application purposes. Doctors, nurses, pharmacists, psychologists, and other licensed practitioners who need evidence-based, discerning, unbiased education about cannabis as a therapeutic agent.
Our Mission
To provide healthcare professionals with the evidence-based clinical knowledge they need to counsel patients on the use of cannabis as a medicine — safely, effectively, and without bias.
The Origin of P.A.C.E.
P.A.C.E. has long been envisioned as an outgrowth of Patients Out of Time — a nonprofit 501(c)(3) corporation that works to educate all disciplines of healthcare professionals, their specialty and professional organizations, the legal profession, and the public at large about medical cannabis. PACE is established at this time specifically to meet the need of educating healthcare professionals, as this demand will be ever-increasing in the coming years. The co-founders of PACE are Mary Lynn Mathre, MS, RN, a co-founder of Patients Out of Time, and Deborah Malka, MD, PhD, a speaker and instructor of Clinical Cannabis Education. Drawing upon 30 years of CME-accredited conference materials brought up to date by a current curriculum that meets the specific needs of healthcare professionals now, we aim to pool the resources of the best educators in the realm of medical cannabis therapeutics and present this information in one unified place.
FOUNDER'S BIOS
Our courses move from receptor pharmacology to clinical application, giving you a working framework for cannabinoid medicine in practice.
Deborah Malka, MD, PhD
President and Co-Founder, PACE Dr. Malka is a holistic physician with certification in Integrative Holistic Medicine and a PhD in Human Genetics from Columbia University. She is both a clinician and an educator in medical cannabis. She has previously served as the medical director for a group of 30 clinics providing medical marijuana evaluations in California, training 50 physicians and serving over 300,000 patients. She is committed to educating the public and professionals about medicinal cannabis, teaching at conferences nationally and internationally. She developed and served as faculty director for the first online CME-accredited curriculum in Clinical Cannabinoid Medicine, sponsored by the Society of Cannabis Clinicians. Her definitive textbook for professionals was published in 2022 — Medicinal Cannabis: Pearls for Clinical Practice, CRC Press, Taylor & Francis. She is now semi-retired in New Mexico, where she teaches 4th-year medical students about cannabis as a medicine and does private cannabis health consulting. • Holistic Physician with Medical Cannabis Specialization — Board-certified in Integrative Holistic Medicine with a PhD in Human Genetics from Columbia University. • Cannabis Medicine Educator — Developed and directed the first online CME-accredited curriculum in Clinical Cannabinoid Medicine. Adjunct Clinical Assistant Professor, University of New Mexico School of Medicine, teaching 4th-year medical students Medical Cannabis Therapeutics. • Author & Advocate — Published Medicinal Cannabis: Pearls for Clinical Practice, 2022, CRC Press, Taylor & Francis.
Mary Lynn (ML) Mathre, MS, RN
Co-Founder, PACE | Co-Founder and Past President, Patients Out of Time | Founding Member, American Cannabis Nurses Association Mary Lynn graduated from the College of St. Teresa in Winona, MN in 1975 and began her nursing career in the U.S. Navy Nurse Corps. She earned her MS degree from Case Western Reserve University in 1985; her thesis was on Marijuana Disclosure to Health Care Professionals. Originally a medical surgical nurse, Ms. Mathre changed specialties in 1987 and has been a Certified Addictions Registered Nurse (CARN) since 1989. She served as charge nurse on the Addiction Treatment Unit at the University of Virginia Health System and later as the first Clinician 5 (expert level) Addictions Consult Nurse for UVA Health System until 2002. She later served as Executive Director of an opioid dependence treatment center in Charlottesville. • Supporting Veterans — Mary Lynn began her nursing career in the U.S. Navy Nurse Corps and has sustained a commitment to veteran healthcare throughout her career. • Patient-Centric Conferences — 25 years of producing accredited educational seminars for medical professionals, providing a professional environment for learning and connecting scientists and medical professionals worldwide. • Accredited Seminar Series — Co-founder of Patients Out of Time, which has produced CME-accredited conferences for cannabis medicine since 1995.
35 Years. Still Not in the Curriculum.
Join the clinicians who are closing the gap between what you learned in training and what your patients are asking about now, with curriculum built on the evidence.