The Medicines Control Council (MCC) is simplifying the legal framework for medicinal cannabis to make it easier for patients to use these products‚ Parliament heard on Wednesday.
The MCC has already re-classified medicinal cannabis from a tightly restricted schedule 7 product to a permitted schedule 6 or schedule 4 product‚ depending on its composition‚ and next week is expected to approve the final guidelines governing the cultivation of cannabis for medical purposes.
Little will immediately change for patients‚ but these developments mean that doctors will be able to prescribe cannabis-containing medicines once they have been registered by the MCC. And the door is about to open for individuals or companies that wish to cultivate the plant to make a medicinal product.
IFP MP Narend Singh‚ who took stewardship of the private member’s bill on medicinal cannabis tabled in Parliament in 2014 by the late Mario Ambrosini‚ said he was delighted with the changes.
“I want to see a time when a GP prescribes it for a patient‚ and it’s in the pharmacy or the dispensary of a public hospital‚” he said.
