Vittorio Hernandez
A worker holds medical cannabis grown in a greenhouse near the southern
Israeli city of Ashkelon, in this August 27, 2009 file picture.
Reuters/Amir Cohen
The Victorian Parliament approved on Tuesday the Access to
Medicinal Cannabis Bill, making it the first Australian state to
legalise medicinal marijuana. Health Minister Jill Hennessy says the first to benefit from the legislation would be children with severe epilepsy.
Medicinal cannabis would be available to young epileptics
in Victoria by 2017. Studies show that lives of children with severe
epilepsy improve significantly when given medicinal marijuana. Although
many such patients do not reach adulthood, the state wants to improve
their quality of life, says Hennessy.
The legislation removes the dilemma of parent with epileptic
kids who have to buy medicinal weed illegally. “I just think that in
this day and age, it’s unfair and unacceptable to ask a parent to make a
decision between obeying the law and acting in the best interests of
their child,” ABC quotes the minister.
Medicinal cannabis would be available in capsules,
tinctures, sprays, oils and vaporisable liquids. After epileptics, it
would later be gradually made available to palliative care and HIV
patients. To oversee the production of medicinal marijuana and educate
patients and doctors about their role and who are eligible to purchase
it, an Office of Medicinal Cannabis would be set up.
Ahead of Victoria’s approval, the federal parliament
approved in February the raising of weed for medical or scientific
purposes, reports Sky News. Before the roll out of medicinal marijuana,
Victoria would conduct a small-scale, controlled cannabis cultivation
trial at a research facility in the state.
In 2015, Queensland said it would start medicinal marijuana
trial to treat kids with epilepsy this 2016. Meanwhile, New South Wales
would provide medicinal cannabis to 330 patients who suffer from nausea
and vomiting because of chemotherapy as part of a clinical trial of a
tablet made by a Canadian pharmaceutical.
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