McGowan pushes for medicinal cannabis
Medicinal cannabis will be legalised if Rockingham MLA Mark McGowan is successful in his push to change WA’s drug laws.
The WA Labor leader vowed on Sunday to decriminalise medicinal marijuana for the terminally ill, patients in pain and people with chronic conditions, if elected to government.
The move would allow the strictly limited use of the drug in tablet or spray form which would be prescribed by GPs.
Mr McGowan said he did not support a softening of WA’s recreational cannabis laws.
He said he saw first-hand the benefits of medicinal cannabis after meeting a terminally ill young Rockingham man who used the drug to relieve his pain.
“I don’t want people in that situation to be turned into criminals," he said.
He said the decision was his personal belief and not an act to pander to interest groups.
Hemp Party WA president and Rockingham resident Darren Guthrie welcomed Mr McGowan’s views.
He said many people would rather use cannabis than pharmaceutical treatments.
Health Minister Dr Kim Hames said the use of cannabis for medicinal purposes was, at best, experimental and required more research.
AMA WA president Michael Gannon said he did not support the smoking of cannabis because it was a “crude” way of using the drug, but the association was not opposed to clinical trials.
