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WA Government to support medicinal cannabis
Daniel Emerson - The West Australian on October 28, 2016, 12:50 am
Making medical cannabis legal
Commonwealth legislation making medicinal cannabis a controlled prescription drug comes into effect on Tuesday, forcing States to decide whether they will give legal effect to the changes.

State Cabinet decided on Monday to fall into line and enact necessary regulations.

WA Health will set up an “expert advisory council”, to which doctors will have to apply, as well as the Federal Therapeutic Goods Administration, before prescribing new cannabis drugs from early next year.


A rally at the Supreme Courts Gardens to legalise cannabis for medical use in 2014. Picture: Bill Hatto
It will also spawn a new industry, with growers and manufacturers able to apply for State and Federal permits from today.

There is demand for cannabis as oil, tablets or spray to treat ailments including epilepsy, spasms caused by multiple sclerosis and the pain of cancer and AIDS.

But its path to market in WA has been politically fraught.




Angel Watterson from Bibra Lake at the rally in 2014.


When Labor promised in 2014 to legalise medicinal cannabis, it was heavily criticised by former health minister Kim Hames who said consumption in tablet form would “totally dilute the message about stopping people smoking marijuana for recreational use”.

His successor John Day will today welcome the new products and emphasise that illicit cannabis use is still prohibited.

Royal Australian College of GPs president Bastian Seidel said he doubted doctors would flock to cannabis because supporting evidence was “very limited”.



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But GPs were already under pressure to prescribe it from patients influenced by “hype”. Reclassification had the potential to worsen this by being perceived as official endorsement, he said.

Australian Medical Association WA president Andrew Miller said cannabis was seldom an effective drug but had strong community support because many people liked to smoke it to get high.

It would have been politically difficult for the State not to join the national framework. “I suspect they are clearing the decks ahead of an election,” he said.

Former Federal Liberal MP Mal Washer, chairman of medicinal cannabis company AusCann, said it hoped to be the first WA producer and had secured agreement to grow plants at Murdoch University.

The company says hundreds of clinical studies and firsthand evidence support the drug’s benefits.

The West Australian