The campaign to change the federal laws prohibiting medicinal cannabis is underpinned by evidence. But it’s after meeting someone who is experiencing tremendous pain and suffering and can’t get relief from conventional therapy that you feel compelled to act.
One of these people is Dan Haslam. Earlier this year a group of federal politicians from all the major parties met with Dan’s mother Lucy Haslam and heard her family’s story. Lucy is a retired nurse from Tamworth NSW. She told us about her experience looking after her 24-year old son Daniel, who has terminal bowel cancer. Daniel experienced severe nausea and vomiting after his chemotherapy and frontline anti-nausea medicines didn’t relieve his distressing symptoms. But cannabis did.
“The opium poppy, for example, is the source of another illicit drug, heroin; yet is also the source of common opiates used in health care, such as codeine, morphine, oxycodone and about 25 other opioids used for the relief of chronic pain and suffering.”
Lucy Haslam has been a brave and active campaigner willing to speak out about the only medication that relieves her son’s suffering. Others are caught up in laws that make no sense. In July 2014, Sexual Offences and Child Abuse police, wielding a search warrant, raided a suburban home in Victoria. The police were there to seize medicinal cannabis products from the parents of a gravely ill child. The raid followed the public comments from a courageous mother who was using medicinal cannabis as a last line treatment for her son – a 3 year-old boy suffering from severe brain damage, cerebral abscesses, hydrocephalus, epilepsy and cerebral palsy.
The hospital where this very sick child is being treated recently told the distraught parents they would call the police if they continued to administer cannabis oil. It is a decision that exacerbates their suffering.
Currently about 20 countries, and over 20 states in the USA, allow cannabis to be used as a medicine. But not here in Australia, where it is against the law even to test whether medicinal cannabis might help.
The legislation that my colleagues and I will introduce into the Federal Parliament is intended to establish an independent expert regulator that will create a framework for the cultivation, processing and supply of medicinal cannabis for conditions where there is proven therapeutic benefit. A number of clinical trials and major reviews of the evidence have found that medicinal cannabis is an effective therapy with limited side effects. For specific conditions it is an effective means of relieving nausea, nerve related pain and muscle spasms.
We shouldn’t confuse the use of medicinal cannabis with the wider debate about drug use in Australia. The opium poppy, for example, is the source of another illicit drug, heroin; yet is also the source of common opiates used in health care, such as codeine, morphine, oxycodone and about 25 other opioids used for the relief of chronic pain and suffering. It is unthinkable that we would deprive people of effective opiate pain relief because some people misuse them. The same judgement should be applied to medicinal cannabis.
Our legislation is designed to create a consistent and regulated medicine that can be obtained from legally licenced growers. If passed, it will also create the opportunity to contribute to the evidence base through clinical trials that investigate promising cannabis pharmacotherapies for conditions such as epilepsy and glaucoma. Such trials of pharmaceutical cannabis are likely to contribute to the international evidence and provide reassurance for policy makers to make compassionate and considered laws that help people.
The Prime Minister, Tony Abbott, has already flagged his support for medicinal cannabis. But words are cheap. The question now is whether he will back up his rhetoric and hand over the regulation of medicinal cannabis to medical experts so that people who are suffering can get access to an effective treatment.
Dr Richard Di Natale is the Greens health spokesperson and a former GP. He is also a co-convenor of the Parliamentary Group for Drug Policy and Law Reform.
