It has been 10 months since medicinal cannabis was made legally available in Tasmania.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
The Controlled Access Scheme is designed to give medical specialists the ability to prescribe medical cannabis products for patients for whom conventional treatments have failed.
It was a scheme that many advocates had fought hard to see realised, in the state.
This week, it was revealed that six Tasmanians have so far accessed the scheme.
Health Minister Michael Ferguson further revealed that there were nine Tasmanians on the waiting list to receive the treatment.
For an unprecedented treatment, it is hard to say if these figures are lower or higher than they should be.
It is not about the number of people accessing the treatment, but the number that are trying to access it.
The Greens and doctors this week called for the process to become more streamlined, not just in Tasmania, but nationally.
Many of the complaints from people trying to access medical cannabis under the scheme has been the process.
The Examiner has regularly spoken with the Cleaver family, at Mount Direction.
Mother Lyn Cleaver is desperately trying to access a legal stream of medicinal cannabis to treat her 26-year-old son Jeremy Bester, who has been diagnosed with refractory epilepsy as a child and experiences severe seizures regularly.
Jeremy’s application for the scheme has been rejected, leaving the family with no choice but to illegally grow and manufacture the drug themselves.
Ms Cleaver says the drug helps Jeremy’s condition.
As parents, they are faced with a tough choice: do something illegal, or watch their son continue to suffer.
It is a choice a parent should never have to make.
There is a suggestion to nationally streamline the medical marijuana process, so that it can be prescribed directly by GPs, to patients who have tried every other avenue available to them.
This idea has merit. It is, as Dr Bastian Seidel pointed out in The Examiner on Thursday, a similar process that exists currently for the “dangerous” drug morphine.
It’s not a case of whipping out the prescription pad and prescribing cannabis for every ailment – caution must still be taken, especially while side effects are still being uncovered.
