Two days for approval

state/territory health department approval to prescribe medicinal cannabis,” she said.

“As of July 30, doctors who wish to apply to prescribe unapproved medicinal cannabis products can do so via the SAS online portal available on the TGA website.

“For doctors in Queensland, Victoria and New South Wales, this portal also allows the doctor to simultaneously make an application to the relevant state, and both Commonwealth and state approval can be granted within 48 hours, if all information has been provided by the doctor.

“It is planned that additional states and territories will be included soon.” CONSISTENT access to good quality, co-ordinated pain medication is a better option for Far North Queenslanders than medicinal cannabis, according to a medical expert.

Geelong-based pain specialist Dr Michael Vagg said the jury was still out on marijuana and the scientific case for the drug was “flimsy” at best.

“We have no compelling evidence that it’s really, really useful,” he said. “And we have some evidence that it might be harmful in the long run, so caution is really important.”

Dr Vagg is the acting dean of the faculty of pain medicine of the Australian and New Zealand College of Anaesthetists, which is hosting its annual conference in Cairns next month.

The college’s position on medicinal cannabis is that the only responsible way to use cannabis-related products in a pain setting is in a properly conducted clinical trial.

Dr Vagg said he was not surprised by the relatively low number of prescriptions for the drug in the Far North, given concerns about the potential psychotic effects one of the active molecules of cannabis, THC (tetrahydrocannabinol), could induce in users.

“The problem seems to be that you seem to need the THC to get the pain relief, so there’s really no way of getting useful pain relief in a consistent number of people without that significant risk of making some of them go psychotic,” he said. “Given the seriousness of some of the side effects … it’s not surprising that people aren’t rushing to use it.”

He said increasing access to drugs that were proven to be effective in pain relief, by listing them on the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme, was a better option than marijuana.

“Getting consistent access for people around the country to good-quality, co-ordinated pain relief is a far more cost-effective way,” he said.

“If we just applied what we knew now, there would be significantly improved outcomes.

“We wouldn’t be going looking for the next miracle cure, because we would be doing fairly well.”