Pauline Hanson (Queensland, Pauline Hanson's One Nation Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak to One Nation's Improving Access to Medicinal Cannabis Bill 2023. Medicinal cannabis has only been legally available since 2016. Since it was down-scheduled through measures like the Authorised Prescriber Scheme, the number of Australians prescribed medicinal cannabis products has increased from a few hundred in 2018 to more than half a million in 2022. This growth clearly shows there is a prominent place for medicinal cannabis products in Australian health care. However, a system which worked quite well for only a few thousand scripts a year is under strain from hundreds of thousands of scripts. Patients have more recently encountered increasing problems with accessing these products, along with other issues like product quality, availability and pricing. These difficulties have resulted in a small drop in prescriptions. We consider this legislation to be a timely response.

Our bill cleans up the poisons schedule listings for medicinal products derived from cannabis and makes them available under schedule 4, meaning they can be prescribed by any doctor or veterinarian. In addition, the bill provides for low-strength preparations to be made available over the counter at a pharmacy or veterinary practice for purchase by adults. The strength of these products is determined by the level of tetrahydrocannabinol¸ or THC, in them. This is the intoxicating compound. All states in Australia now have a one per cent limit on THC in these products, which is still well below the level that could produce intoxication. Such products are commonly called hemp.

Our bill harmonises Commonwealth law with state laws, increasing the level at which products are considered hemp from 0.1 per cent to one per cent. Previously, a hemp classification was based on the species of the plant from which the product was derived: sativa or indica. However, growers overseas have bred new varieties of these plants which are much lower in THC but have higher levels of other beneficial healing compounds. Our bill reflects that a hemp product can only be determined by its THC level.

Perhaps the most important benefit of this bill is that it will help to significantly reduce the cost of medicinal cannabis. By moving it to schedule 4, more doctors and vets can prescribe it, so economies of scale will work in the patient's favour. More crucially, moving it to schedule 4 opens the pathway for listing medicinal cannabis products on the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme. A successful PBS listing application usually requires a sponsor with deep pockets who can later recover costs from its patent on the listed product. However, you can't patent a natural plant. There is a solution to this, and One Nation will soon introduce proposed legislation which will enable the listing of medicinal cannabis products on the PBS.

Another important element to increasing access is to ensure doctors, pharmacists and vets are educated about medicinal cannabis so that they are prescribing or selling the appropriate product for a given condition. It would be wise for the Therapeutic Goods Administration to maintain the requirement that medical professionals complete an appropriate medicinal cannabis course before they are able to start prescribing it. This isn't a criticism of doctors, who can only prescribe what's available, but one of the reasons for the recent reduction in medicinal cannabis scripts is that patients feel the product did not work for them. However, this is usually because the wrong product was prescribed for the health profile of the patient.

Our legislation supports Australians who are seeking more natural medicines and medical treatments. The cannabinoids in cannabis are as natural as any other product available. They're found in other plant species and in spices like black pepper and turmeric. They are manufactured by our own bodies and play an important role in the human body's capacity to heal itself. They are also manufactured in the bodies of the pet animals we keep. The full range of these cannabinoids are available in cannabis plants, but that's not all that's in these remarkable plants—there are around 500 other health-promoting compounds, antioxidants, dietary fibre, minerals and trace elements.

As more Australians access medicinal cannabis to treat a wide variety of conditions, state and territory governments will need to have another look at the way they test motorists for intoxication. The purpose is to ensure that motorists are not impaired or present a danger to themselves and others on the road. This should be based not on a chemistry test but on whether a driver is actually impaired, as it is evident that medicinal cannabis products can result in a positive drug test while not actually impairing the person being treated with them.

A final point: our legislation very strictly does not allow children under 18 to access any of these products. With clear evidence that medicinal cannabis is effective in treating a wide range of conditions and with clear evidence that it is in high demand in Australia, it is time to elevate it as the primary healthcare option it should be. One Nation has always put Australians first, and in this spirit I commend this legislation to the Senate.