Medicinal Cannabis Committee
Unanimously Calls for Significant Medicinal Cannabis Reforms
The Joint Committee on Medicinal Cannabis of the Parliament of South Australia unveiled its first report this week. The Committee’s six members straddle political parties and regional and metro parts of our state.
Tammy Franks MLC (Chair – Greens)
Fraser Ellis MP (Independent)
Justin Hanson MLC (Labor)
Ben Hood MLC (Liberal)
Eddie Hughes MP (Labor)
David Pisoni MP (Liberal)
Among the 13 recommendations that were unanimously supported by the Committee the report calls for:
Amending the Road Traffic Act 1961 (SA) so that it will not be an offence to drive with THC present in oral fluid, or blood, for drivers when:
- A person has been prescribed an MC product containing THC;
- is using the product in accordance with the prescription;
- has a zero-blood alcohol concentration; and
- the driver is not impaired.
Supporting workplace reforms to create policies for workers who are not impaired yet have a medicinal cannabis prescription to lawfully undertake their workplace duties.
That accessibility and affordability of prescribed medicinal cannabis products be enhanced through removal of barriers to using Telehealth consultations and administration of a compassionate access scheme for those unable to afford current high expenses and in hospitals.
That a review be held to identify and remove unnecessary barriers to medicinal cannabis businesses and that research on the use of medicinal cannabis with particular regard to Industrial relations, health and road safety be supported.
Quotes Attributable to Tammy Franks MLC, Chair of the Medicinal Cannabis Committee:
I’m pleased to see the first cross party collaborative step towards ending the stigma borne out of mythologies and mistruths around medicinal cannabis. Yet our current road, workplace, industry and health policies and laws still too often criminalise medicinal cannabis patients who are taking a lawful product according to prescription for no good reason.
We keep punishing patients. The punitive nature of our current drug driving laws and roadside testing regime currently criminalises those using medicinal cannabis without any evidence of impairment. Safety and science should lead this debate not dodgy assumptions. If a Tasmanian patient can drive within prescribed use if not impaired in Tasmania and have a defence in the Courts, then surely SA patients should have that defence too?
It is clear that our laws need to evolve. All members of this Committee may not have thought so when we started but all came to that conclusion and agreed these 13 recommendations unanimously when presented with the evidence.