Medicinal marijuana is to become legal (but strictly controlled) in Australia from November, after a formal decision from the Therapeutic Goods Administration this week. Paving the way for the drug’s medicinal use, the Federal Government is working towards creating a national regulator for the industry.
Some however fear the system may take much longer to get up and running, and will see patients caught up in endless red tape in order to get the medicine they need.
While describing the decision as an “essential step in the process”, medicinal marijuana campaigner and United in Compassion co-founder Lucy Haslam tells Fairfax Media that she feared the industry could be “so bound up in red tape” that may it not be workable for some patients in need.
“My fear is that the industry will become so expensive that patients won’t be able to access a legal supply at an affordable price,” she says, citing that many patients who need the drug to were still suffering in a “holding pattern” while the government fusses over it’s regulatory system.
“There’s also a lot of work to do on educating people and doctors, some of who remain a bit uncomfortable about prescribing medical cannabis to patients.”
With clinical trials showing the substance can help treat chronic pain and spasticity, as well as potentially reducing chemotherapy-related nausea, you’d hope that doctors were sticking to the science and not allowing their personal feeling on the drugs stopping them prescribing the drug.
The decision follows the Federal Parliament lending bipartisan support to changes to the Narcotic Drugs Act to allow marijuana to be grown and produced legally in Australia, as long as it is for medicinal purposes.
Non-medicinal marijuana will still be illegal however, with hopes for an American style system of legalised recreational marijuana still a long way off.
