New data suggests Australians are spending more on medicinal cannabis than ever before, with sales on track to double those from 2023. But a new report has raised concerns about the amount of unethical prescribing in the industry.
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00:00So, drug policy organisation the Pennington has found for the first half of this year
00:06we spent a record $400 million. That's a big jump in just a few years because back in 2022
00:13we spent around $230 million for the entire year. From the limited data available we can
00:19see that men make up the majority of prescribers through the special access scheme and they're
00:24predominantly seeking medicinal cannabis to treat chronic pain and anxiety. So, demands
00:29really rocketed since medicinal cannabis was legalised in 2016 and CEO of the Pennington
00:35John Bryan says community sentiment around decriminalisation is also changing.
00:42It's something that's new to Australia I guess in the last 10 years and it's been incredibly
00:48successful. Only 20% of the Australian community supports the criminalisation of cannabis.
00:55The community actually wants a health-led response and more than 50% of Victorians for
01:01example support a regulated adult cannabis market.
01:05So what are people's concerns then Paige?
01:07So while the industry is thriving it's also had a lot of bad press recently especially
01:12around inappropriate prescribing by telehealth providers. So the Institute said there are
01:17often commercial conflicts of interest between producers, prescribers and pharmacies and
01:22patients I spoke to said their doctor would often push certain brands on them despite
01:26their wishes or force them to get their scripts filled at specific pharmacies. One even told
01:32me that when they would be on the website for their clinic their online shopping cart
01:36would be automatically filled with products that they didn't need or want and they had
01:40to call to get those removed. So the health regulation watchdog earlier this year said
01:45they were going to crack down on this high volume prescribing and their investigations
01:50are continuing and we've also seen a couple of doctors suspended by the medical board
01:54recently.
01:55And what research do we have on the efficacy of medicinal cannabis?
01:58Yeah so a lot of people report improvements for a range of conditions but the scientific
02:03evidence is still reasonably modest. It's strong for certain conditions including multiple
02:08sclerosis, childhood epilepsies and chemotherapy induced nausea and vomiting. It's moderate
02:14for chronic pain and there's still a lot more research needed but there's still insufficient
02:18evidence that it helps with anxiety and mental health disorders. Researchers want the medicinal
02:23cannabis industry to really crank up the money for this research. They say it will give prescribers
02:28and patients more confidence around treatment options.