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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 6 Hansard (17 June) . . Page.. 1672 ..

MR MOORE (continuing):

As I said at the time, it was very clear from the monographs of the National Drug Strategy Committee that the proposal was consistent with our international treaties, but that certainly did not stop Labor from whipping up the issue. That cost them somewhat in the election.

Mr Berry: Ha, ha!

MR MOORE: Nevertheless, Mr Speaker, I do not resile from the mistakes that I made at that time. Mr Berry laughs, probably forgetting that there was something like a 15 per cent swing at the last election, which in any jurisdiction would be considered a massive loss, Mr Speaker. Anybody would presume that by now the Labor Party, having suffered such a massive loss, would have picked up in the polls and be going ahead. There is only so low that you can go before you can start turning things around, one would have thought. For my own part, Mr Speaker, I am willing to concede that I attempted to push the issue through the Assembly and to the community much too quickly. Nevertheless, I think it is important that this issue of medicinal use of cannabis be brought up again. The reason it is important is that it is about compassion.

Mr Temporary Deputy Speaker, in a short while I am going to talk about the uses of medicinal cannabis, about where cannabis can be used. First, I want to point out that there have been papers published in the most eminent of medical journals in the world, including the Medical Journal of Australia, the New England Journal of Medicine and the Journal of the American Medical Association. These are peer review journals that require the highest possible research and review methods. As far as I am concerned, the medicinal use of cannabis should really apply only after somebody has explored conventional medicine. We are talking only of situations where people have explored conventional medicine for their problems, conventional medicine is not working, and they then seek some relief from other forms of herbal medicine, and, particularly in this case, medicinal cannabis. Because cannabis has been the subject of our Drugs of Dependence Act, it is simply not available to people who are suffering. They might be suffering, Mr Temporary Deputy Speaker, from glaucoma. This has been recognised by the most prohibitionist of all nations on this issue, the United States, which actually - - -

Mr Berry: Yes, but not smoking it; drops.

MR MOORE: The United States actually provides cannabis currently to 10 individuals. At one stage it was 12 individuals. Mr Berry indicates it is in the form of drops. No, that is not correct, Mr Berry. I have met one of these people, who smokes cannabis provided to him by the United States Government for this purpose, for glaucoma. It is not done by drops. He actually smokes the cannabis. He told me that one of the reasons why he smokes the cannabis is that he can feel the difference as he uses it. Mr Berry would be aware that when somebody smokes the delivery of the medicine is reasonably rapid.

Remember, Mr Temporary Deputy Speaker, that I am talking only about people who have tried conventional medicine and it has not been working. It applies for such things as nausea associated with chemotherapy. Fortunately, over the last few years, conventional medicine to deal with nausea associated with chemotherapy has become much better.

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