The campaign to decriminalize cannabis for medicinal purposes has garnered the support of politicians and the public alike, with both Opposition Leader, Bill Shorten, and Prime Minister Tony Abbott indicating tentative encouragement for the passing of new legislation.
Tess Gibney
Despite this, the Australian Medical Association (AMA) continues to exercise a hardline stance on the legalisation of the drug, urging the government to only consider it in the form of a “fully tested medicine”. This would mean the raw plant, oils and tinctures would not be trialed or legalised, and would instead be replaced by cannabis-based pharmaceutical products.
Dr. David Allsop, a research fellow in psychopharmacology and addiction medicine at the University of Sydney, said that legalisation of cannabis matter is inhibited by the drug’s variety of compounds.
“The main concern surrounding legalisation is that it can’t go through the TGAs medical process because it’s not an isolated compound, and delivering a known dose is not as easy as it is with, say, a spray.”
Prime Minister Abbott vocalised his support of legalisation for the treatment of illness to controversial talkback host Alan Jones in August, dismissing the need for further medical testing in Australia. “My basic contention is that something that has been found to be safe in a reliable jurisdiction shouldn’t need to be tested again here,” he said.
Obtaining the oil through illegal suppliers – such as well-known Mullaways Medical Cannabis Pty. Ltd. – has seen parents face problems in hospitals and clinics. Recently, doctors told parents of a severely epileptic Melbourne boy that they would stop administering the oil due to potential legal ramifications, raising a number of ethical questions about criminalisation of the drug.
Dr. Alex Wodak, president of the Australian Drug Law Reform Foundation, said Federal and State governments have lost the “consent of the governed” on the issue of medical cannabis.
There is currently one cannabis-based drug available on the Australian market; a spray composed of equal parts THC and CBD called Sativex. Though it is currently only available for prescription to patients with Multiple Sclerosis, Dr. Allsop said there was potential for the spray to be used in the future for treatment of childhood epilepsy.
“[It] is definitely a [potential] treatment option for children with epilepsy. It’s got the active [therapeutic] ingredients in it; it’s got THC and cannabidiol (CBD) … but it may well turn out that Sativex, which is already approved in our system, is not the optimal treatment for children,” he said.
Dr. Allsop believes that that the hardline pharmaceutical stance taken by the AMA is ‘a little bit at odds with what is happening in the rest of the world’, and disputes that the content of cannabis plant material is undeterminable.
“It can always be worked out; you can always refine it, if you have the will. We’re seeing that in many other countries around the world but we don’t really have the will to
do that.”
