Calls for cannabis changes
Doctors should be allowed to prescribe medicinal cannabis to patients in chronic pain throughout New Zealand, an advocacy group has said.
The call, from Medical Cannabis Awareness New Zealand, comes after Taranaki mother-of-one Helen Old last week gained approval to source medicinal cannabis (MC) products from Canada after a 12 month battle.
The 56-year-old, who has been battling multiple sclerosis, a disabling disease of the brain and spinal cord that has left her paralysed from the neck down, is one of only three people who have been given the green light to use different varieties of MC to treat pain.
It took Old, and her husband Peter, more than nine months to get her application before the Ministry of Health which took another two months to approve it.
Shane Le Brun, of Medical Cannabis Awareness New Zealand, said the process needed to be changed to benefit the tens of thousands of high needs patients in New Zealand.
The advocacy group aims to ’’Put Patients before Politics’’ and help others get access to MC in New Zealand through legal means.
‘‘It wouldn’t have taken nearly as long if the GP had the knowledge of cannabis-based products and it was clearly communicated that GPs were able to prescribe them,’’ Le Brun said.
‘‘What we’d propose is that for products that have been approved in other cases, GPs who have a demonstrated learning of cannabis can make the applications themselves.’’
Le Brun said there had been a 100 per cent success rate getting Canadian products approved by the ministry and the country had a really good system which he would like to see New Zealand adopt.
He wanted to see the products made available as unregistered medicines and manufactured in New Zealand.
Peter Old said the couple had received an overwhelming amount of positive feedback from people around the world since their story was published.
‘‘Everyone has been very supportive of the fact that people in pain that have been down the road of conventional pain relief, which doesn’t work for them, should have the option of trying something that doesn’t effect anybody else’s life.’’
The couple are now working to get the approved products into New Zealand.