Medicinal Cannabis To Be Used As Treatment Option In Queensland, Legalization To Happen In Australia?

By Sarah T

Medical Marijuana is set to be legalized in Queensland.
(Photo : Sean Gallup/Getty Images) 

 

Is Queensland ready to legalize medicinal cannabis?

The medicinal cannabis also known as marijuana is said to be legalized in Queensland. ABC News Australia reports that Health Minister Cameron Dick will introduce new laws that allow the usage of medicinal marijuana.

The new laws aim to establish a framework for the legal use of medicinal cannabis. The new laws have been brought up because the public has showed overwhelming support for the change.

The federal Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) is expected to make a decision about whether to reschedule the cannabis as a medicine by the end of the month. Once it was agreed to be legal, it will be effective on June 1.

The draft of the Public Health (Medicinal Cannabis) Bill 2016 was released in March. According to Sky News, Mr. Dick said that 96 percent of the 1,052 people who had been surveyed supported the draft.

"To manage medicinal cannabis use in future, particularly if patient demand for this type of treatment increases, a more specific, transparent and robust regulatory framework is required," Mr. Dick told the Australian parliament on May 11, Tuesday.

The Queensland government approved Australia's first medically-supervised prescription for medicinal cannabis for an individual patient last week. The new legislation will not allow people to grow their own cannabis, even for therapeutic purposes according to Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk.

Palaszczuk said the new legislation was an opportunity for local businesses to supply medicinal cannabis, and the role of the government was to help them within the Commonwealth's licensing scheme.

"I have been moved by the stories of families with young children with epilepsy, suffering life-threatening seizures, and what they have to go through on a daily basis," Palaszczuk said.

Meanwhile, a father of a young cancer patient, Adam Koessler, was fined $500 because he supplied his two-year-old daughter Rumer Rose with a dangerous drug, according to recent report of ABC AU. Rumer was diagnosed with a rare form of cancer neroblastoma in 2014.

Koessler told the court that researched the benefits of medicinal cannabis on the internet, and sourced the drug from northern New South Wales and the United States. He put cannabis oil into Rumer's food.

According to Koessler, when the girl ate the food with cannabis oil, her appetite increased. However, the girl Koessler confirmed on his Facebook that his daughter passed away.