NSW leads way on medical cannabis

NSW is continuing to look at ways to ease the suffering of cancer patients as it works with the federal government on protocols for growing and supplying medicinal cannabis.

Premier Mike Baird said his state would happily lead the country after he announced cannabis clinical trials last year to help treat terminally-ill adults, chemotherapy patients and children with severe epilepsy.

The move followed the premier’s meeting with Daniel Haslam, a 25-year-old who used cannabis to relieve his symptoms in his fiveyear battle with bowel cancer.

He died in February, leaving the lobbying of politicians for the legalisation of medicinal cannabis to his mother Lucy, a retired nurse, and his father Lou, a former police officer.

On top of the trials, since backed by Victoria and Queensland, NSW police were given discretionary powers not to charge terminally-ill cannabis users and their carers.

Baird offered to help other states considering similar changes.

‘‘We have a scheme that’s working here in NSW but if we can expand it, enhance it and bring it forward to other people, well, we are up for it,’’ he said yesterday. ‘‘Whether it be through the trials, whether it be through compassionate access, our centre of medical excellence is working very strongly on this and we’re very happy to lead the country on it.’’

His comments come after the federal government announced plans to amend the Narcotics Drugs Act 1967 to permit controlled cultivation of cannabis for medicinal and scientific purposes.

Trials will continue to help determine the most effective forms and doses in which the drug should be dispensed.

Supply and regulation were one of the biggest challenges, Baird said. ‘‘We’ll work with our centre of excellence, with the federal government, to look at what we can do and how quickly we can do it.’’

The federal government on Saturday said it would create a licensing scheme within the Department of Health to ensure cultivation met international obligations.