Australian medicinal marijuana patients will soon be able to access the drug within days of receiving a prescription from their doctor, after the Federal Government announced it would allow Australian companies to import regular shipments of the product from overseas.
Health Minister Greg Hunt said the changes, expected to come into effect within eight weeks, would give patients reliable access to quality drugs while domestic growers develop their supply.
"It's about the compassionate use of a medicine," Minister Hunt said.
"Whilst we are waiting for domestic supplies to come on board...for the first time in history, [this will] provide an import process which will allow us to have an interim national supply."
The current legal framework means patients need to source their medication on a case-by-case basis, requiring individual permits from the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA).
This meant patients would often need to wait months for their medicine to arrive.
Minister Hunt stressed the new scheme would deliver drugs to patients much faster but would still be tightly regulated by the TGA and the decision would still rest with doctors.
"Once the doctors have made a decision - and it's always a decision for the doctors - the patients will be able to get rapid access within a matter of days," he said.
"At the moment there is a legal regime which allows access, but practically there's not the supply available."
The kinds of conditions patients are allowed to treat with medicinal marijuana vary state-by-state but include multiple sclerosis, epilepsy, cancer and HIV/AIDS.
Mr Hunt said the TGA and the Office of Drug Control were in conversations with several companies about imports.
The minister said one company in particular was likely to make an early application in the coming weeks, but did not name the company.
Last week, the drug control office issued Australia's first cannabis licence, which grants the company Cannoperations the right to grow the marijuana plant for research purposes.
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Patients' perspective
SBS News spoke with several patients currently treating themselves with marijuana which they obtain illegally from local suppliers.
Nicole Cowles has an 11-year-old daughter with severe epilepsy, and says 90 per cent of her seizures stopped when she began medicinal marijuana treatment three years ago.
She sources the product from a local supplier in Tasmania and creates the medical tinctures in her own kitchen.
"I don't believe that myself, or any other parent, should be forced to make their child's medication," she said.
"There's part of me that loves being able to create something that's natural and good for my child and has saved her life, but there's a much bigger part of me that says I shouldn't be put into that decision.
"I'm already under enough stress [with a] disabled child, I shouldn't be forced to fly under the radar and make my own products."
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Marijuana changed my daughter's life
Ms Cowles says she's part of a massive network of Australians who share medicinal cannabis with one another, often at a low price or for no money at all.
She believes Australia should move to a less restrictive system like that in some parts of the United States, where medical cannabis is sold in herbal dispensaries.
She said it was unlikely she would seek a prescription for her daughter to access the new imported drugs, and said many in the community were underwhelmed with Mr Hunt's announcement.
"Realistically, what I produce in my kitchen I believe is probably 100 times better than anything the government is proposing to offer me," she said.
Multiple users expressed concerns about the potentially high price of medicinal cannabis imported from overseas.
Damon Adams, 39, uses the drug to relieve a painful knee injury he has had for a decade.
He, too, said he would stick with his current supplier.
"I will continue to find my cannabis on the black market because I know I can find a good quality, and a good quantity as well," Mr Adams said.
The Health Minister said the intention of the imports was to bridge the gap between supply and demand while local marijuana production catches up.
But with only one cannabis licence granted so far, some of those companies have complained of being hamstrung by tight TGA regulations.
Ben Fitzsimons, CEO of the Australian Cannabis Corporation, said his company had anticipated Wednesday's announcement and was already working with partners in the USA to import American cannabis.
But he said the long-term goal was for his company to be a leading producer of the drug on Australian soil.
"We're on the ground running already, but that still doesn't take us away from our main goal of establishing the industry in Australia, and then hopefully being allowed to export our products that we create here to the world," Mr Fitzsimons said.
"It's just a global market, it's a global product now, and just like wine and any other industry you can think of that Australia gets involved with, this will be one of those industries as well."
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