Latest / The Front / Cannabis is linked to psychosis. Why is it legal?

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Cannabis is linked to psychosis. Why is it legal? · The Front

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  Speaker 1: From The Australian. Here's what's on the front. I'm Claire Harvey.
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  Speaker 1: It's Wednesday, August nineteen, twenty twenty six. An appeal by
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  Speaker 1: convicted mushroom murderer Aaron Patterson starts in Melbourne today. Patterson
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  Speaker 1: says her twenty twenty five trial was undermined by a
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  Speaker 1: jury accommodation snapfoo. She wants the court to quash her
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  Speaker 1: triple murder and attempted murder convictions and order a retrial.
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  Speaker 1: An appeal by Victoria's Director of Public Prosecutions will also
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  Speaker 1: be heard. The DPP says Patterson should serve more time
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  Speaker 1: for her crimes. She's currently serving a thirty three year sentence.
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  Speaker 1: Reent could jump by as much as thirty percent as
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  Speaker 1: landlords scrambled to recoup financial benefits lost in the government's
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  Speaker 1: property tax overhaul. That's according to NAB and the nation's
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  Speaker 1: biggest real estate agency, Ray White, and it's life now
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  Speaker 1: at The Australian dot com dot AU. A new study
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  Speaker 1: shows cannabis use is linked to the early onset of
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  Speaker 1: psychosis and so called medicinal cannabis is just as risky
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  Speaker 1: as rolling a joint. So why is this product legal.
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  Speaker 1: That's today's story.
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  Speaker 2: I love wood cannabis because they're a real flower.
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  Speaker 1: Helps me deal with fake people.
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  Speaker 3: One of the fastest growing categories in the world is
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  Speaker 3: medicinal cannabis s gummies for chronic pain, anxiety and insomnia.
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  Speaker 1: They're technically illegal in Australia unless prescribed by a doctor,
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  Speaker 1: but there's a booming gray market for them. Cannabis in
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  Speaker 1: Australia report reveals spending has skyrocketed from two hundred and
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  Speaker 1: thirty million two years ago to a predicted one billion
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  Speaker 1: by the end of this year. Natasha Robinson is The
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  Speaker 1: Australian's Healthy Editor. Natasha, cannabis is an issue that I
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  Speaker 1: feel like has been around in Australian healthcare for a
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  Speaker 1: really long time. There's been an active lobby group wanting
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  Speaker 1: cannabis to be available both medicinally and recreationally in Australia.
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  Speaker 1: Those more people in Australia and New Zealand use marijuana
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  Speaker 1: and in phetamines than anywhere else in the world. Right now,
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  Speaker 1: you can get it from a doctor if you have
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  Speaker 1: a chronic pain condition that's not responding to other kinds
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  Speaker 1: of treatment. But what do we know about how effective
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  Speaker 1: medicinal cannabis actually eat is.
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  Speaker 4: It is recognized in the literature scientific literature as being
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  Speaker 4: effective for a small suite of conditions. These include things
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  Speaker 4: like infantile epilepsy, and it really is quite a small
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  Speaker 4: number of conditions in which the science absolutely backs medicinal cannabis.
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  Speaker 4: In terms of the conditions for which it is commonly used,
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  Speaker 4: such as depression, anxiety, sleep, PTSD, et cetera, the evidence
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  Speaker 4: is dramely weak. It has effectively in the two most
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  Speaker 4: authoritative and biggest studies into medicinal cannabis, has been found
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  Speaker 4: effectively not to work for those conditions at all.
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  Speaker 1: Of course, people use it recreationally as well, and there's
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  Speaker 1: long been a few especially among parents, that it's associated
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  Speaker 1: with depression or maybe more serious mental health conditions. What
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  Speaker 1: do we know about that?
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  Speaker 4: So it is incredibly difficult to prove that link because
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  Speaker 4: if you were to run the gold standard evidence process
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  Speaker 4: in being a clinical trial, it's not something that can
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  Speaker 4: be done because that would mean that you'd have to
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  Speaker 4: have some young people smoking cannabis even though we know
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  Speaker 4: may be harmful, against a control group, and that is
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  Speaker 4: not something that is going to get past any ethics committee.
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  Speaker 4: So it is not really able to be proven in
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  Speaker 4: that way, so we have to go on observational studies.
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  Speaker 4: There is a strong suspicion there's links that have been
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  Speaker 4: found in studies of that kind between psychosis and cannabis use,
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  Speaker 4: cannabis use and the development of schizophrenia. It is not proven,
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  Speaker 4: but it is strongly suspected.
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  Speaker 1: It's an interesting idea that cannabis could be medically useful,
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  Speaker 1: isn't it, Because there's no doubt that you would feel
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  Speaker 1: some relief from, say pain in the moment.
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  Speaker 2: If you smoke a joint.
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  Speaker 1: I'm sure. The question is is it better than any
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  Speaker 1: other kind of medicinally prescribed product and is that benefit
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  Speaker 1: outweighed or does that outweigh the risk of other things
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  Speaker 1: happening addiction, psychosis, mental health problems. I mean, you'd probably
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  Speaker 1: feel better if you're in chronic pain if you drank
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  Speaker 1: a bottle of whiskey, but we know that.
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  Speaker 2: That's not good for you.
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  Speaker 1: How confident do you think we can be that it
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  Speaker 1: is safe to use cannabis if you're in chronic pain.
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  Speaker 4: Well, I think this study that has come out today
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  Speaker 4: absolutely shows that we can't be confident that it's safe.
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  Speaker 3: Now, the prevailing view has been that the dangers of
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  Speaker 3: cannabis are to the developing brain, but actually we found
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  Speaker 3: the reverse of.
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  Speaker 1: That Visus Matthew Large. He's a conjoint professor of psychiatry
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  Speaker 1: at the University of New South Wales and he's just
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  Speaker 1: published a major scientific analysis showing cannabis users developed psychosis
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  Speaker 1: earlier than those who don't use it.
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  Speaker 3: So in effect, what this is showing is that probably
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  Speaker 3: the longer you've been exposed to cannabis for the more
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  Speaker 3: the clock is brought forward, and that probably has a
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  Speaker 3: greater effect in older groups of people who actually have
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  Speaker 3: less genetic propensity to psychosis.
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  Speaker 4: That you've got a clear link in a very large,
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  Speaker 4: you know, observational study involving seventy thousand people that in
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  Speaker 4: every age, not only young people, that the onset of psychosis.
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  Speaker 2: Is brought forward by years.
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  Speaker 4: If cannabis is in the equation, then that can be
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  Speaker 4: smoking cannabis or medicinal cannabis. There's no difference. And that's
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  Speaker 4: the thing that I think is really lost in translation
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  Speaker 4: with the incredible prevalence of medicinal cannabis is that by
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  Speaker 4: and large people think that it is safe.
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  Speaker 2: I do not think that.
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  Speaker 4: We can say at all that this is a safe product.
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  Speaker 4: You know, the majority of uses you know out there
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  Speaker 4: in the community are not approved TGA Therapeutic Goods administration uses.
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  Speaker 4: These products have not been assessed for safety by the TGA,
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  Speaker 4: yet they're being prescribed by doctors.
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  Speaker 2: That is quite an extraordinary situation.
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  Speaker 4: You know, we get into the whole debate about legalization
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  Speaker 4: versus harms, and if we didn't legalize then there's all
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  Speaker 4: sorts of consequences of that. But we're talking about medical
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  Speaker 4: prescription of a product here.
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  Speaker 2: It's quite a different matter. I think.
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  Speaker 1: Natasha spoke with Matthew Large on the release of his analysis,
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  Speaker 1: which is published in the scientific journal Biological Psychiatry.
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  Speaker 3: So people thought that cannabis must be safe because it
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  Speaker 3: should be legal. I know that sounds crazy, but people
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  Speaker 3: literally thought that, and the medicinalization of cannabis was I
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  Speaker 3: think a bizarre compromise that's left us in this very
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  Speaker 3: precarious situation where cannabis has now got a halo of
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  Speaker 3: being a medicine. And in my time as a clinician,
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  Speaker 3: it's much harder to talk with patients about the harms
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  Speaker 3: of cannabis because they just say it's a medicine, it
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  Speaker 3: was prescribed by.
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  Speaker 1: A doctor, especially when in Australia we have such faith
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  Speaker 1: in our medicines because of the TGA, know that if
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  Speaker 1: we prescribed something from a doctor, it has been through
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  Speaker 1: rigorous testing and has been the subject of a negotiation
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  Speaker 1: between the government and the drug maker.
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  Speaker 2: To actually have it allowed.
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  Speaker 1: How do you think we've got to a state where
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  Speaker 1: people are being prescribed something that we don't know that
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  Speaker 1: much about.
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  Speaker 2: Well, I think that's a million dollar question. I really
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  Speaker 2: don't know.
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  Speaker 4: I'm quite baffled by it, really, because we are making
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  Speaker 4: available a product which contains THHC and contains substances that
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  Speaker 4: we know can have an impact upon the brain, and
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  Speaker 4: not just the developing teenage brain, the adult brain as well,
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  Speaker 4: and so.
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  Speaker 2: It's almost like.
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  Speaker 4: An experiment in real time. We're not going to know
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  Speaker 4: the true consequences of this were we've been given a
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  Speaker 4: window into them with this study, and it's pretty concerning.
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  Speaker 4: I would have thought that as time goes on there
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  Speaker 4: will be more and more data, more and more real
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  Speaker 4: world experience.
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  Speaker 2: So it is a major experiment. I think.
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  Speaker 3: The studies are not all of them are positive, but collectively,
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  Speaker 3: they're far from reassuring. In fact, I think they're quite
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  Speaker 3: anxiety provoking.
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  Speaker 1: Coming up, should we be treating cannabis more like tobacco?
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  Speaker 1: There's a cascade to New South Wales recently change the
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  Speaker 1: law so that a certain amount of cannabis in your
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  Speaker 1: system is legal if you get pulled over for a
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  Speaker 1: roadside drug test. They did that because it's legal to
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  Speaker 1: get a prescription of it from the TGA or from
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  Speaker 1: your doctor be approved by the TGA.
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  Speaker 5: Driving will be overhauled in New South Wales to allow
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  Speaker 5: those who use medicinal cannabis behind the wheel, but the
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  Speaker 5: state government insists it will be managed safely.
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  Speaker 1: This is a legal substance.
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  Speaker 3: They've gone to a doctor to get a prescription because
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  Speaker 3: they've got an ailment or a pain that they need
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  Speaker 3: help with.
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  Speaker 1: And we don't think the legal.
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  Speaker 3: Systems kept pace with that change in New South Wales.
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  Speaker 1: So there's another way to treat cannabis, which is to
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  Speaker 1: continue to treat it as an illicit drug and to
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  Speaker 1: treat it maybe a bit more like tobacco where we're
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  Speaker 1: trying to minimize use. Would that be a wiser course
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  Speaker 1: for Australia.
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  Speaker 4: Well, look, I think that if you have academic studies
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  Speaker 4: with very clear findings that there is some demonstrated harms
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  Speaker 4: associated with cannabis use, such as bringing forward by sort
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  Speaker 4: of seven years in older age groups, the onset of psychosis,
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  Speaker 4: that does beg the question should there be some kind
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  Speaker 4: of warning for consumers because at the moment there is
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  Speaker 4: a very widespread perception that these products that they are
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  Speaker 4: getting from a doctor are safe.
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  Speaker 2: The question is are we really confident that they are?
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  Speaker 4: And therefore does it behoove authorities to issue some warnings
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  Speaker 4: to patients.
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  Speaker 3: It could have a proper warning on the packet, It
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  Speaker 3: could be a public education campaign. It could attract the
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  Speaker 3: GST and perhaps some other taxes. You might have to,
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  Speaker 3: for instance, get a license to purchase cannabis having done
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  Speaker 3: an online course. I mean, there are all sorts of
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  Speaker 3: ways of doing this.
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  Speaker 1: Natasha Robinson is the Australian's Health Editor. You can read
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  Speaker 1: all her stories right now at the Australian dot com
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  Speaker 1: dot au slash health