[hard rain]

CANNABIS prescriptions could soon be available to Australians for the first time as evidence mounts for its medicinal use in people with cancer and multiple sclerosis.

Australian doctors are testing a cannabis mouth spray called Sativex in cancer patients with pain that does not respond well to painkillers such as morphine.

The phase-three trial is the last of several studies required for manufacturer GW Pharmaceuticals to try to licence the drug in Australia.

Brian Le, a palliative care specialist at the Royal Melbourne Hospital, said four Australian hospitals were taking part in the study, which involves about 300 patients in 20 locations around the world. If the drug is found to be safe and effective, he said it could be available to patients in the next few years.


A spokeswoman for Novartis, the company employed by GW Pharmaceuticals to commercialise the drug in Australia, said it was working with the Therapeutic Goods Administration to make Sativex available to patients with multiple sclerosis who suffer from uncontrolled muscle spasticity.

No pharmaceutical drugs based on cannabis are currently licensed for use in Australia. Since 2004, health authorities in Britain, Canada and Spain have licensed Sativex for patients with multiple sclerosis, a neurological condition that causes painful muscle stiffness in about 90 per cent of sufferers.

While cannabis is known to cause hallucinations and delusions, Dr Le said phase-one and phase-two trials of Sativex in more than 400 cancer patients found it relieved pain with few side effects, the most common being nausea. He said psychiatric side effects were very rare in the doses used and that patients did not report feeling ''stoned''.

''Our experience is that pain improves and the patients actually feel better. They're more able to do daily activities, sleep better through the night without pain and think clearly, so instances of feeling confused or out of it are low,'' he said.

Dr Le said the drug worked by targeting cannabinoid receptors in the brain. ''Cannabinoid receptors are like morphine receptors in the body, they mediate how the pain is sensed and how that pain message is transmitted to the brain and therefore perceived, so it reduces the conduction of that message to say there is pain occurring,'' he said.

Dr Le said patients in the trial cannot drive because Australian laws prohibit driving with cannabis in the system.

Read more: https://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/nati...#ixzz2Ad5CHqnm

Looks like using actual cannabis medicinally is going to by passed in favour of something we will have to buy at a chemist!

[Terroir]

Originally Posted by hard rain

Looks like using actual cannabis medicinally is going to by passed in favour of something we will have to buy at a chemist!

looks like it.

i wish we could get mullaway 400 cancer / ms patients for a clinical trial.

Did you see the side effects of sativex = nausia. How is that supposed to help someone undergoing chemo and cant keep there food down to start with.

[hard rain]

Makes you wonder why Australian doctors aren't testing Mullaway's tincture doesn't it? Especially now as apparently "evidence mounts for its medicinal use in people with cancer and multiple sclerosis." Instead we test a foreign pharmaceutical?

The Australian government and media really shit me to tears. No mention in the article of what is happening regarding medical use of actual cannabis.

I agree, everyone ... but the more often cannabis is referred to in the Media ... the more likely the general public will come to accept the benefits of cannabis.

well, that's how it seems to me.

and as far as Mullaway is concerned ... I doubt Tony and his Friends are going to let Med cannabis in Oz be terminated by the NSW Magistrate's Court!

[noyd666]

it even got a mention on news, on small island under oz, any good news ,is positive news. go tony mull.

[AfroSheep]

Any move towards cannabis is a good move, at least in the right direction - closer and closer to being able to use the plant itself!,

But wtf is this - While cannabis is known to cause hallucinations and delusions.
Anyone here ever had hallucinations or delusions off of it??? apart from relaxing and not giving a fuck how slow time moves.