Hello everyone. I hope you are all staying safe and well during this extraordinary period in history. Please keep washing your hands, practising social distancing, and listening to the experts. Especially those of you who are immunocompromised. 

This week, the Senate committee investigating current barriers to patient access to medicinal cannabis in Australia handed down its report. A number of welcome recommendations have been made. You can read the entire report here. 

Here are the highlights: 

• Several measures to address the lack of education of the health workforce and the general public
• Streamlining the application process to reduce costs to patients and reduce the workload for doctors
• Sensible recommendations around down scheduling CBD and non-psychoactive cannabinoids and very importantly
• Encouraging states to review criminal legislation relating to patients still reliant on the green market and those medicinal cannabis patients who are disadvantaged by driving laws

And perhaps most crucially, endorsing the idea of an Independent Regulator which would solve many problems, and should be reconsidered if the Government fails to act on these recommendations in a timely manner.

It has been over 4 years since Dans Law was passed, and to finally have this level of criticism of the rollout of medician cannabis access, coming from within Parliament, is staggering. 

We, of course, acknowledge that the health minister is rightly focusing all of his energy on the COVID-19 pandemic. We are sending our thoughts to the many healthcare workers on the frontlines of the epidemic, and the patients who find themselves infected with the virus. 

We will continue to advocate for reforms to patient access for medicinal cannabis, and look forward to resuming this campaign in earnest when the Australian response to COVID-19 comes to an end. 

Thank you all for your continued support. 

Lucy Haslam.

#FixDansLaw