The medicinal cannabis law was named after my son. Now shady companies are damaging his legacy

I was heavily involved in the push to legalise medicinal cannabis in Australia when my youngest son, Dan, was dying of stage-4 bowel cancer 10 years ago.

My husband is a former police officer who was in the drug squad during his 35-year career, and we were not supportive of legalising cannabis. But after a friend and fellow cancer patient suggested to Dan that it might help him with chemotherapy-induced nausea and vomiting, he decided to try it.

Lucy Haslam became a campaigner for legalising medicinal cannabis after her son, Dan (pictured), found the drug relieved the side effects of his bowel cancer treatment.

The effect was immediate. The colour came back into his face, he said he was hungry again. It was life-changing for him – it gave him back some quality of life during the year before his death at age 25.

But we didn’t want to be doing anything illegal. I started researching medicinal cannabis and ended up on this incredible journey that’s now been going for more than 10 years.

The federal government introduced the legislation legalising medicinal cannabis on the first anniversary of Dan’s death, and named it Dan’s Law in his honour.

With the rapid expansion of the medicinal cannabis sector in Australia following substantial advocacy efforts from me and many others in 2014-2015, there was considerable optimism that individuals living with chronic illness and pain would ultimately benefit from these developments.

The initial period following legalisation of medicinal cannabis in 2016 presented significant challenges. The regulatory and access pathways were highly complex and structured in a manner that restricted, rather than facilitated, access.

Now, almost 10 years on, it is ironic that the prevailing concern has shifted in the opposite direction to the issue of seemingly unfettered access. On the surface, it may seem to someone who had long advocated for legal access to medicinal cannabis that the current framework, where script numbers are being described as a “deluge”, is a good outcome, but this is not what good medicine is about. It is certainly not what I fought for when I sought to allow patients like Dan to legally access the medicine that best relieved their suffering.

As reported in this masthead on Monday, there has been a wave of troubling practices from a small number of companies that have cast a shadow over the entire sector. These practices include prioritising profits over patient care, egregious regulatory non-compliances and predatory marketing practices. As reported, one doctor wrote 72,000 cannabis scripts in two years.

Over the past few years, industry sector and patient advocates have consistently expressed concerns to government and regulators about vertically integrated medicinal cannabis business models – in which one company pays the medical practitioners, supplies the product and owns the distribution network – and management practices of some companies that place greater emphasis on financial objectives than on patient welfare.

This compromises the core intent of medicinal cannabis as a legitimate and valuable therapeutic option. It is such a shame that it takes damning media reports to shake regulatory authorities into action. But it remains crucial to pursue solutions that protect patients’ interests and support the broader sector, which continues to demonstrate professionalism and an abundance of ethical care. A quick dive into the Australian medicinal cannabis landscape will demonstrate the very best and the very worst that the emerging sector offers.

At the heart of every healthcare system lies a sacred covenant: trust between a patient and their doctor. Patients must believe that medical advice is provided in their best interests and, in the case of medicinal cannabis, based on emerging evidence, scientific indications and clinical experience, not on vested commercial interests. When this trust is exploited, the consequences are profound – not just for individuals, but for the reputation of medicinal cannabis as a whole.

When commerce corrupts care, we must find a sensible and measured solution that does not punish those who have already been victims of unethical practice. In 2019, a Senate inquiry into the barriers to patient access to medicinal cannabis made many sensible and pragmatic recommendations including public awareness campaigns to equip patients with essential knowledge – such as potential challenges associated with unapproved medications – and further education for health professionals to support safe and ethical practice, but they were largely ignored by government, and patients have continued to be negatively impacted.

My sincere hope in the wake of the recent adverse publicity is that, while acknowledging that these isolated bad practices in the sector are abhorrent and must be obliterated, they are not reflective of the majority of the ethical and caring health professionals and providers operating in the sector, who have battled the stigma, bias and misinformation to provide diligent care, based on clinical need that is patient-centric.

My concern is that the response to the recently reported unethical and possibly illegal behaviour will be misguided and lead to more restrictive, unhelpful regulations that punish all providers, regardless of their ethics or patient outcomes. Patients who could genuinely benefit from medicinal cannabis may find themselves further stigmatised or denied access entirely.

Companies that put profit over patients must be prosecuted and brought into line swiftly. Government cannot allow unethical and illegal practice to fester. The race to the bottom, once it has begun, will be difficult to reverse.

If medicinal cannabis is to fulfil its promise in Australia, urgent action is required. Regulators have the tools and levers to hold the industry to account, through such measures such as removing licences to supply and practise, significant financial sanctions and ongoing monitoring. Authorities should not allow this vertical model under which one company controls diagnosis as well as the supply and distribution of cannabis. Healthcare should not be mixed with business like this. Patients must be empowered with accurate information and access to truly independent medical advice. And most importantly, the sector must recommit to its original purpose of serving the needs of those for whom traditional medicine has failed, with compassion, humility and integrity.

It is not too late to restore trust, and reviewing the recommendations of the 2019 Senate inquiry would be a good start. But doing so will require a collective effort to put patients, not profits, at the centre of every decision. Only then can medicinal cannabis truly realise its potential as a life-changing therapy, rather than a cautionary tale of corporate overreach.

Lucy Haslam is the co-founder of United in Compassion and the Australian Medicinal Cannabis Association.

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