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Woman sources 'home-grown' medicinal cannabis through her church after year-long effort to obtain it legally fails


ABC South West WA
By Sebastian Neuweiler
Posted about 7 hours ago

• Olive Wraight tried to access medicinal cannabis for chronic pain relief through legal channels for more than a year
• The 89-year-old is one of an estimated 100,000 people using 'home grown' cannabis products to treat medical problems
• There are 57 authorised prescribers in Australia, but privacy laws prevent patients from being able to search for them

Since its inception there have been 5,200 approvals via 600 doctors through the scheme; 500 of those approvals occurred in Western Australia.

The affordability of medicines prompted Mr Cook to raise the issue with Federal Health Minister Greg Hunt.

"I wrote to him last year to ask him to consider utilising the Pharmaceutical Benefit Scheme as a way of providing price or cost relief to patients," Mr Cook said.

"What he pointed out to me is that you can only use the Pharmaceutical Benefit Scheme once a drug has got TGA approval and once we understand better the impact for the patient.

"As other products come on the market you can see the increasing downward pressure on that price and hopefully they'll become more affordable."
'Resist the temptation'

Mr Cook (WA Health Minister) urged Western Australians to be patient and "resist the temptation" of sourcing medicinal cannabis illegally.
"Don't trust them unless they are an approved supplier with Australian accreditation," he said.
"We know community sentiment is running ahead of the medical science on this.
"We are moving as quickly as possible so people don't feel tempted to buy online, to pick up some dodgy product from somewhere else."

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-04...o-help-her-access-medicinal-cannabis/10985892