GPs are still coy about cannabis, despite evidence

IT IS easier than ever for GPs to prescribe medicinal cannabis, but pain sufferers are still blocked by stigma and fear, a new survey has found.

The national pain survey has revealed that only onethird of respondents have felt confident to raise the matter with their GP.

The survey has shown little change in attitude by GPs, despite the growing body of evidence to show that cannabis is an effective pain treatment without the devastating sideeffects of opioids.

Chronic endometriosis sufferer “Kate”, from Trinity

Park, said that cannabis was “life-changing”.

“I wasn’t high, I was free from pain,” Kate said.

A joint US-Israeli study found “the treatment of chronic pain with medicinal cannabis resulted in improved pain and functional outcomes, and a significant reduction in opioid use”.

This study was published in 2013, yet doctors in Cairns are still reluctant to prescribe cannabis.

Pharmacist Brett Christoffelsz hopes the groundswell in favour of medicinal cannabis is spreading in the far-north.

“We are at the tip of the iceberg,” Mr Christoffelsz said.

“There are so many people out there who can benefit from cannabis, but they can’t get access,” he said.

A combination of big pharma interests and stubborn attitudes in Australia had slowed the uptake of medicinal cannabis among health professionals.

“The cannabis laws in the ’50s and ’60s in the US were struck without evidence,” Mr Christoffelsz said.

“Now the evidence is the other way around but it is very hard to shift. Multimillion-dollar companies in the US brainwash doctors with so-called evidence ... the way things have happened in the last 10-15 years, narcotics have blown out of control.”