Misuse of Drugs (Medicinal Cannabis) Amendment Bill

Thank you, Mr Chair. Clause 9 is mostly administrative. It talks to some of the subsets, if you like, of cannabinoids, particularly tetrahydrocannabinol and cannabidiol (CBD). As we’ve already expressed previously, and as I believe, cannabidiol is a product that as a National Government we had increased access to. It used to require ministerial discretion and a whole range of other compliance hurdles, and in our hands, we indicated that cannabidiol, we believed, had a safety profile that was OK—more specifically, that it has negligible psychoactive properties. In fact, if you go to New York, around Central Park, you’ll see CBD lollipops. Now, I don’t think we want to go that far because we’re still of the belief that the cannabinoid products are fundamentally a medicine, but it does reinforce the point that there’s a range of evidence that CBD, cannabidiol, may, in fact, be safe.

Furthermore, not just safe. There’s no point having something that’s just safe; it may well be effective. It seems to be particularly effective in inflammatory, maybe more than anti-spasm sorts of conditions, and we certainly believe what we’re told—that it has negligible psychoactive properties.

Now, it turns out there are many parts of the cannabinoids that may well be required and a cannabidiol may well be a better product with a little bit of THC in, and in an earlier clause the committee of the whole House passed through THC analogues. This is, in effect, called the entourage effect, also known as potentiation. What happens there is the CBD is potentiated—it’s made better—by a little bit of THC. In fact, it also counteracts some of the negative side effects of CBD, and CBD does the same for THC.

So what we’re seeing here in this clause is we’re seeing CBD being asserted around the tetrahydrocannabinols. We can see other variations, or isomers, stereotactil changes, if you like, in a chemical being considered consistent with the initial base of that chemical—that’s what an isomer is—and what we’re saying here in one of the schedules is basically that isomers of tetrahydrocannabinol that are non-psychoactive or otherwise very, very similar to the core base, that we’re going to group them all together. So administrators—a lot of chemical mumbo-jumbo in here, but I think it does tighten up parts of this. It doesn’t talk to some of the other cannabinoids that may have a role in the benefits that we’re looking for in medicinal cannabis—the terpenes, for example.

It seems to be that there may be an entourage effect with the terpenes, besides CBD and THC. It’s not clear to me that that’s covered in this sort of description, but it may need someone more chemically and legislatively analytical than I am to say, “Yes, that’s included.” I’m just highlighting that what we know now about CBD and THC probably includes some of the other cannabinoid products like the terpenes.

There are also other parts of the whole plant that we heard in the Health Committee may well have some benefits. Again, I’m a man of science, so I’d need to see the sort of evidence around that. They’re not described here because they’re not well described out in the environment, either, so that may be something that needs to follow. Also, I guess this whole clause raises the question as to when there’ll be some scientific background or some scientific contribution—maybe even from a chemical analyst or engineer—on the medicinal cannabis advisory committee that the Minister has spoken about. It would seem that we want to bring the best of science and the best practice to this task, and, as we’re seeing here, it can be quite complex.

So, fundamentally, this clause is dealing with issues that do have some background—issues that we can understand and the general public can understand. We’ll be interested to see if it picks up some of the other products, other cannabinoid components, that aren’t specifically mentioned as to whether they might otherwise be incorporated in further legislation, or whether the belief is that they’re incorporated here. The question, then, for those people who believe there are other parts of the whole plant besides THC and besides CBD—does this clause speak to them, as well? Thank you.

The question was put that the amendments set out on Supplementary Order Paper 177 in the name of the Hon Dr David Clark to clause 9 be agreed to.

Amendments agreed to.

Clause 9 as amended agreed to.

New clause 9A New Schedule 6 inserted