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Home 🌿 Medical Cannabis News 🌿 Doctors Say South Australia's Medicinal Cannabis Law Changes Give Patients False Hope 🌿Doctors Say South Australia's Medicinal Cannabis Law Changes Give Patients False Hope
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The subscription service is currently unavailable. Please try again later.It is stretching the truth for the South Australian Government to suggest medicinal cannabis products can now be easily prescribed for patients in the state, doctors have said.
SA doctors are allowed to prescribe medicinal cannabis for periods of up to two months without having to get government approval, but a longer-term prescription still needs that formal approval.
The chair of the SA branch of the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners, Daniel Byrne, said there were no approved medicinal cannabis products in Australia which doctors could readily prescribe.
"The South Australian Government has put in place the stepping stones, but there's no actual product we can prescribe easily," he said.
"There's a lot of interest in the community so I'm being asked at least once a week by patients who say 'Is it for me? Could I be using it?'
"Announcements like this get people's hopes up, stretching the truth — until there's a legal product for us to prescribe, it's a bit of a false premise."
The Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) must approve any imports of medicinal cannabis products.
Dr Byrne said the process could take weeks and prove expensive for patients.
"I've heard of one recently that's available if you go through all this process, but it's $875 for one bottle," he said.
Dr Byrne said controls were essential to ensure products were safe but he did not believe medicinal cannabis products would become "front-line" medications for several years.
"For the right patient, who has tried everything else and their specialist wants to give a cannabis-based product a go, it could be of benefit," he said.
"But some of the research trials are saying you're getting a 30 to 50 per cent response rate — that's not setting the world on fire.
"We just want to see safe, proven medications available."
Acting Premier Kyam Maher denied the Government was promoting false hope.
"What we're doing is making sure we're doing what is in our power to make it easier for patients to be prescribed medicinal cannabis," he said.
"We're getting out of the way at first instance. It's still the Federal Government's responsibility through the TGA to register medicinal cannabis products."
Holden factory might have drug future
The New South Wales Government has backed three medicinal cannabis trials, including for epileptic children, which could improve the medication supply.
Other parties have been seeking licences for cultivation or to manufacture medicinal cannabis products.
Australian Cannabis Corporation director Ben Fitzsimons is keen to develop an industry in South Australia and is eyeing off the current Holden factory in northern Adelaide, which is due to be vacated next October.
He said getting a cultivation, manufacturing or research licence for medicinal cannabis was difficult.
"[That is] as you'd expect with something that was a while ago considered an illicit and narcotic drug," he said.
"There are a number of groups in Queensland, Victoria and Western Australia that have received their licences, but that doesn't mean they will be delivering product to the market place any time soon.
"Just because the [prescription] pathway's been opened up by the Government it doesn't mean people are going to be able to access it."
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