Fiona Hutton, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington
Medicinal cannabis products were made legal in New Zealand in 2020. But high costs and widespread reluctance from doctors means many sick people are still accessing cannabis illegally.
The TGA gave low-dose cannabis sales without prescription the green light in February. But no product has jumped through all the regulatory hoops to market yet.
Non-intoxicating cannabis products are safe and well tolerated by those who use them, so why not lower the clinical threshold for their manufacture and sale?
It’s important patients taking prescribed medicinal cannabis products are not unduly penalised. But it’s equally important we minimise the chance drivers put themselves or other road users at risk.
The draft New Zealand cannabis law proposes a ban on advertising, but includes no reference to marketing via social media, where most alcohol marketing now takes place.
For some women with endometriosis, surgery and medication just aren’t cutting it to alleviate their pain and other symptoms. One in ten turn to cannabis.
Muslims make up 9% of France’s population and half of all its prisoners – many convicted on drug charges. But social justice isn’t part of the country’s growing debate on legalization.
There is no doubt a regulated market for access to medicinal cannabis is safer, but if cannabis-based products were allowed to bypass efficacy trials, there’s a potential cost to patient safety.
Health spent a lot of time in the spotlight in 2016. Medicare was a major issue in Australia’s federal election and numerous government reviews into health were announced and reported.
In 2016 three Australian states and the Commonwealth passed laws to legalise the growing of medicinal cannabis. It was an extraordinary result for a campaign that struggled for decades to gain traction.
The Australian government will now accept licence applications for groups wanting to grow cannabis for scientific and medical purposes. But there’s still a lot we don’t know about this complex plant.