Letters
Health services administration
Volume 205 - Issue 9

Medicinal cannabis in Australia: the missing links

Authors:  Albert S Reece and Gary K Hulse

Med J Aust 2016; 205 (9): 425. || doi: 10.5694/mja16.00709
Published online: 7 November 2016
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To the Editor:

The well researched article by Martin and Bonomo1 may provide the Australian government with the kind of safety and efficacy data mandatory for all new drugs marketed to human populations. However, the authors did not discuss the efficacy of cannabis compared with that of accepted safe medicines; this applies to most of the indications that have been alleged but not proven for cannabis, including pain, spasticity, anticonvulsant action, weight gain and antiglaucoma agents.

In Australia, leading cannabis advocates champion generalised drug legalisation,2 and in New South Wales there is a specific Medicinal Cannabis Compassionate Use Scheme, which relates to patients in terminal care with consideration being given to extending its use to patients who are non-terminal.3

However, personal criticisms may stifle the necessary academic debate and rigorous assessment that are applied to any other proposed medication. It seems counter-evidentiary that while a leading international addiction science administrator issues cautionary statements on cannabis (relating particularly to neurological, developmental, driving, respiratory, lifetime trajectory and pro-addiction effects),4 professional leaders in this country may endure personal attacks. As authors of a cautionary article on the causal implication of cannabis in the genotoxic heritable mutagenicity and carcinogenicity in exposed individuals and their offspring,5 we have faced similar criticism.

When those who claim to be authorities of addiction medicine refer to themselves as the Nimbin Health and Medical Research Council,6 something is awry. What is required is a considered debate based on current empirical data and not decisions pushed by idealistic groups. As George Santayana wrote in another context: “Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it”.

Authors

  • Albert S Reece
  • Gary K Hulse
  • 1. University of Western Australia, Perth, WA

Correspondence: sreece@bigpond.net.au

References

View this article on Wiley Online Library

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