WITH society's growing demand for access to medicinal cannabis, physicians and regulators are facing "significant challenges" keeping pace, according to Royal Australasian College of Physicians (RACP) authors writing in the MJA.
Clinical Associate Professor Adrian Reynolds, Professor Jennifer Martin and Associate Professor Yvonne Bonomo wrote in their 'Perspective' that "Australians' acceptance of cannabis is higher than it has been for generations.
"The pace and scale of the introduction of medicinal cannabis are unprecedented and have raised challenges for health professionals, not so much because of its known addictive and psychoactive properties, but because its introduction has not followed the usual research-based safety and effectiveness processes."
The authors said that the RACP understands the community's interest in medicinal cannabis as a therapeutic product, but wants to highlight that "the usual regulatory processes designed to protect patients from serious harms are incomplete for medicinal cannabinoids, and that evidence of their effectiveness for many medical conditions is at present limited."
The medicinal cannabis product cannabidiol is a promising but as yet sparsely researched treatment for paediatric epilepsy, Reynolds said, emphasising there needed to be a balance between compassion and careful assessment for patients for whom cannabis products might be beneficial - see mja.com.au.
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