Page 2818 - Week 09 - Thursday, 13 August 2015
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The committee could not support the draft bill in its current form. For reasons my colleagues, in particular Dr Bourke, have outlined, we were unable to support this bill on a number of grounds. Mr Rattenbury in a subsequent submission to the committee asked two important questions, and I took them very seriously as well: what level of imperfection is tolerable in exchange for allowing sick and dying people access to a treatment that can assist and help relieve suffering and, secondly, what action do we take while waiting for the completion of clinical trials or for TGA-approved drugs or for a coordinated model of government supply?
Supply is, indeed, a key issue. If we enable supply through the proposed methods in the draft bill, we support some current users—I should add that we heard it is clear not all current users would have been eligible to access the scheme under the draft bill—but we open up exposure to other users currently not with access to the scheme.
There were technical details which, again, crossed the threshold in my view of what is tolerable for the broader community. I was surprised at the level of community input; I had expected more from users of medicinal cannabis. As a result, it was unclear how many people currently use cannabis for medicinal purposes and certainly how many would use it for the purposes that would have made them eligible for legal use under the scheme. Of course, for those suffering terminal illnesses, I was very aware that they may have passed and could therefore not come before the committee and, equally, that there would be many people who would not want to go public with their use of cannabis.
I have some glimpse into the daily pain of people suffering. One contributor suffers ankylosing spondylitis, something my dad has lived with for over 50 years. To say my dad is a bit of a trooper on this is an understatement, and I know he is in pain every day. Some days are better than others.
On the question of the ACT going it alone, we could have gone alone. I do not believe in the perfect outweighing the good, but our sheer size would make this extraordinarily difficult and costly. Cost is an issue, not an excuse. In every case it is the opportunity cost. What cost, for example, to establish our own scheme and what use could that funding be otherwise put to? The equity of the proposed draft bill would be profoundly inequitable. Could parents of a young child dying of cancer learn all the skill necessary to grow their own cannabis and could an elderly couple access the black market? Equity issues are important.
One contradiction I found in the evidence presented to us was that many proponents of medicinal cannabis told us lawmakers and bureaucrats should leave the details of the decision to patients and their practitioners. Yet the clear evidence from health professionals to the committee was that this was not something they endorsed. In that case we must find a better way, and lawmakers and bureaucrats have a role to play here. Bottom line: I think this was a bit of cop-out from some proponents, although I found evidence from the AMA that they were unaware of any doctor with a patient accessing medicinal cannabis slightly incredulous.
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