poledriver
Bluelighter
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GPs send dying Australians underground in their search for medicinal cannabis
Australian GPs are sending sick and dying patients to black market suppliers of medicinal cannabis because prescribing it legally falls into the too hard basket, Nine.com.au has learned.
There are hundreds of "compassionate suppliers" dotted around Australia - most covert, but some openly – giving cannabis oil away for free, Craig Goodwin told Nine.com.au.
Goodwin, aged 52, a father-of-four and a deacon at his local church on the central NSW coast, has been arrested three times and spent 10 months in a maximum security prison for supplying cannabis oil to people dying of cancer, including young children with brain tumours.
He claimed that GPs are telling Australians of all ages, suffering from cancer, multiple sclerosis, epilepsy, Parkinson's disease, tremors and chronic pain, to seek out suppliers like him.
Goodwin also believed federal and state governments could soon be facing a critical showdown, where compassionate suppliers form co-op cannabis farms and start growing marijuana plants in plain sight, regardless of breaking Australian law.
"The GPs are all in fear of the AMA [Australian Medical Association]," Goodwin told Nine.com.au, despite medicinal cannabis being legalised by the federal government in November last year.
"This is all still a big no go area for general practitioners at the moment. I think it's just easier for them legally, and as far as their job is concerned, to just sort of say if you can get someone in the [medicinal cannabis] community to help then go for it."
Like other medicinal cannabis patients and campaigners spoken to by Nine.com.au, Goodwin described "so many roadblocks" and a weight of paperwork strangling access to the medicine.
Jenny Hallam, one of the highest profile compassionate suppliers in the country, was raided by South Australian police in January.
Hallam, a 44-year-old from Adelaide, supplies about 200 patients, some who are dying.
She is gravely concerned for their health and well-being after her operation was shut down just weeks after a similar police raid on a large compassionate supplier based in Newcastle.
She also told Nine.com.au that it was very common for people to contact her on instruction from their local GP.
One doctor in Queensland even regularly ordered cannabis oil from her to treat his own illness, Hallam said.
"Often once [GPs] realise there is nothing else they can do for their patients - pharmaceutical or other treatments - then they will often suggest they try medicinal cannabis."
Hallam was suspicious of the Turnbull government's "dodgy promises" around the legalisation of medicinal cannabis.
If the government was serious about making medicinal cannabis available to Australians, then GPs and pharmacists would have been educated about cannabis oil and the prescription process, Hallam said. She claimed that GPs and pharmacists were currently in the dark.
Nine.com.au has contacted the Department of Health to confirm what medicinal cannabis educational programs have been rolled out for frontline health professionals, but at the time of publication is yet to receive a reply.
"The doctors really don't know much about this at all," Goodwin added. "They're being informed by their patients."
NSW father Goodwin is currently on a two-year good behaviour bond from the courts and will be thrown in jail for several years if he is caught growing cannabis again in 2017.
For now, he is directing people who contact him to his network of fellow compassionate suppliers.
The demand, he said, is growing.
"We deal with the human face of all these people," he said.
Cont at http://www.9news.com.au/health/2017...ch-for-medicinal-cannabis#Ck9YzLuIdlZFY2ZZ.99
Australian GPs are sending sick and dying patients to black market suppliers of medicinal cannabis because prescribing it legally falls into the too hard basket, Nine.com.au has learned.
There are hundreds of "compassionate suppliers" dotted around Australia - most covert, but some openly – giving cannabis oil away for free, Craig Goodwin told Nine.com.au.
Goodwin, aged 52, a father-of-four and a deacon at his local church on the central NSW coast, has been arrested three times and spent 10 months in a maximum security prison for supplying cannabis oil to people dying of cancer, including young children with brain tumours.
He claimed that GPs are telling Australians of all ages, suffering from cancer, multiple sclerosis, epilepsy, Parkinson's disease, tremors and chronic pain, to seek out suppliers like him.
Goodwin also believed federal and state governments could soon be facing a critical showdown, where compassionate suppliers form co-op cannabis farms and start growing marijuana plants in plain sight, regardless of breaking Australian law.
"The GPs are all in fear of the AMA [Australian Medical Association]," Goodwin told Nine.com.au, despite medicinal cannabis being legalised by the federal government in November last year.
"This is all still a big no go area for general practitioners at the moment. I think it's just easier for them legally, and as far as their job is concerned, to just sort of say if you can get someone in the [medicinal cannabis] community to help then go for it."
Like other medicinal cannabis patients and campaigners spoken to by Nine.com.au, Goodwin described "so many roadblocks" and a weight of paperwork strangling access to the medicine.
Jenny Hallam, one of the highest profile compassionate suppliers in the country, was raided by South Australian police in January.
Hallam, a 44-year-old from Adelaide, supplies about 200 patients, some who are dying.
She is gravely concerned for their health and well-being after her operation was shut down just weeks after a similar police raid on a large compassionate supplier based in Newcastle.
She also told Nine.com.au that it was very common for people to contact her on instruction from their local GP.
One doctor in Queensland even regularly ordered cannabis oil from her to treat his own illness, Hallam said.
"Often once [GPs] realise there is nothing else they can do for their patients - pharmaceutical or other treatments - then they will often suggest they try medicinal cannabis."
Hallam was suspicious of the Turnbull government's "dodgy promises" around the legalisation of medicinal cannabis.
If the government was serious about making medicinal cannabis available to Australians, then GPs and pharmacists would have been educated about cannabis oil and the prescription process, Hallam said. She claimed that GPs and pharmacists were currently in the dark.
Nine.com.au has contacted the Department of Health to confirm what medicinal cannabis educational programs have been rolled out for frontline health professionals, but at the time of publication is yet to receive a reply.
"The doctors really don't know much about this at all," Goodwin added. "They're being informed by their patients."
NSW father Goodwin is currently on a two-year good behaviour bond from the courts and will be thrown in jail for several years if he is caught growing cannabis again in 2017.
For now, he is directing people who contact him to his network of fellow compassionate suppliers.
The demand, he said, is growing.
"We deal with the human face of all these people," he said.
Cont at http://www.9news.com.au/health/2017...ch-for-medicinal-cannabis#Ck9YzLuIdlZFY2ZZ.99
