Australia: CWA joins fight to legalise cannabis

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The Age

Monday 11 Sep 2006

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One of the country's most conservative bodies has joined the fight to
legalise cannabis for medicinal purposes.

The national convention of the Country Women's Association (CWA) has
agreed to lobby governments to assist cannabis trials for the relief of
pain in the chronically and terminally ill.

The issue was first raised by the group's Tasmanian branch, which wanted
all options available in their health care.

"A lot of our members are dealing with people who are chronically and
terminally ill and want easy access to services," incoming president
Leslie Young said.

While many anti-drug groups support the CWA push, long term campaigners
warned of the dangers of "overblowing" the positive effects of cannabis.

"Anecdotal stories from pot smokers and ad hoc experimentation with
cannabis should be rejected by Australian governments and reputable
community groups as it is simply dangerous and irresponsible to give
false hope to the seriously ill in this way," the Australian delegate to
Drug Watch International, Michael Robinson said.

Salvation Army drug and alcohol services spokesman Mike Coleman said his
group supported evidence based research and had no moral opposition to
trials into the medicinal use of marijuana.

Australian Drug Foundation spokesman Geoff Munro also supported research
in this direction.

Federal Parliamentary Secretary for Health Christopher Pyne said the
Howard government had given the go-ahead for cannabis trials in NSW and
was not opposed to drugs like the cannabis-based Sativex, which is
licensed in Canada to alleviate pain in multiple sclerosis patients.

Mr Pyne said if a company wanted to market Sativex in Australia it would
have to go through the normal process of attaining approval from the
Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA).

"The government does not oppose cannabis-based drugs for medicinal
purposes (but) we are only talking about tablets or sprays which are
administered as prescribed," he said.

Federal opposition spokesman Laurie Ferguson said support from a
conservative group like the CWA for research into cannabis use was an
indication of how far the public had shifted on this issue.

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