Your Say SA 2020: Legalise medicinal cannabis now
David Burford suffered “excruciating pain” over the last six weeks of his life – and his widow believes medicinal cannabis would’ve helped ease his passage. Nearly every South Australian agrees.
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A widow who buried her cancer-suffering husband waiting for medicinal cannabis to ease the “excruciating pain” of his last six weeks of life wants the current regulatory framework overhauled.
Carol Burford, from Yorke Peninsula, said an application to prescribe medicinal cannabis for her dying husband David was made by his oncologist in April 2017.
Three months later, David died aged 64, with the application still pending approval from the Therapeutics Goods Administration.
“I’m sure that if my husband was able to be prescribed medicinal cannabis in time, his end of life would have been much gentler – we knew it wasn’t going to cure him but he would not have endured so much stress and pain,” said Mrs Burford, 59.
Although the TGA has streamlined the application process significantly since David’s death, Mrs Burford said accessing medicinal cannabis remained a complicated, lengthy and expensive process for many South Australians, who’ve since shared similar stories with her.
More than 80 per cent of people in the Your Say survey said they wanted access to medicinal cannabis made easier.
Mrs Burford has made a submission to the Senate inquiry reporting next month on access barriers to medicinal cannabis and whether it should be subsidised under the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme.
A 56-year-old female reader from south of Adelaide commented in the survey: “I suffer from debilitating chronic pain diseases, and can’t get access to medical cannabis, so have to take opioids for pain relief instead, which are more harmful and addictive to the body – I should have a right to get medical cannabis to help with my pain.”
LeafCann CEO Elisabetta Faenza said overcoming the high cost of Medicinal cannabis as a significant barrier was one of the motivating factors for the planned establishment of the nation’s largest medicinal cannabis processing plant in SA over the next two years.
Construction on LeafCann’s $50 million cultivation and processing centre in Adelaide’s southern suburbs is expected to begin around April.
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The Senate inquiry into access barriers to medicinal cannabis was announced in November last year, shortly after the Sunday Mail reported South Australians doctors were among the least likely to prescribe it and people were sourcing cannabis oil and paste illegally to treat chronic pain.
Calls have since resumed for the legalisation of cannabis for recreational use, particularly for those good Samaritans using it to make medicinal cannabis more accessible.
South Australians however remain divided over this issue, with 41 per cent opposing legalisation of cannabis and 46.4 per cent supporting it in the Sunday Mail Your Say 2020 survey.