Medicinal cannabis guidelines in pipeline

The Medicines Control Council is simplifying the legal framework for medicinal cannabis to make it easier for patients to use such products, Parliament heard on Wednesday.

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 yesterday.

It has already reclassified medicinal cannabis from a tightly restricted schedule 7 product to a permitted schedule 6 or schedule 4 product, depending on its composition. Next week, it 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.

The regulatory push to ease access to medicinal cannabis is taking place independently of the legal challenge launched by Johannesburg residents Jules Stobbs and Myrtle Clarke‚ who have asked the High Court in Pretoria to find the ban on adult dagga use unconstitutional and to instruct Parliament to make new laws reflecting this.

The two key compounds of interest in cannabis are THC (delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol) and cannabidiol: products containing THC, which has psychoactive properties, are now schedule 6, while those that contain only cannabidiol are schedule 4.

No such products had been registered by the MCC, nor had any companies applied for approval, the MCC’s deputy director for law enforcement, Griffith Molewa, told Parliament’s portfolio committee on health.

This means doctors still need to apply to the MCC on a patientby-patient basis for permission to prescribe unregistered medicinal cannabis products.