The Australian Christian Lobby is supporting moves to conduct scientific trials of the use of cannabis for medical purposes but has raised concerns about use of the drug without a medical prescription.
Speaking in the wake of Tuesday’s announcement that the New South Wales Government intends setting up clinical trials of the drug, Lyle Shelton, the ACL’s managing director, said that if marijuana “genuinely has a pallative effect that other drugs do not, it should be made available to patients in the same way other medications are”.
But he added that ” this can only be known after rigorous controlled trials” and said possession and use of marijuana should remain a criminal offence.
“We should not go down the path of allowing possession and self-prescription of what is a highly dangerous drug,” he said.
Making the announcement on Tuesday, NSW Premier Mike Baird said the existing police discretion to not charge terminally ill adults found using cannabis for pain relief would be formalised with new guidelines. It was reported that in NSW a register of register of terminally ill patients and their carers would also be created as part of the formalisation process.
Mr Shelton said that while the ACL sympathised with the desire to find pain relief, “allowing possession and self-medication is running ahead of the medical trials”.
Meanwhile, the Victorian Government has introduced legislation aimed at making it easier for medical cannabis trials to take place.
