Since 2016 One Nation has campaigned for the step of allowing medicinal cannabis with a doctor’s prescription. Now in 2021, 184,000 applications have been approved.1,000 people a year have died from pharmaceutical painkiller overdoses. We can save more lives by making medicinal cannabis more available to those who need it. That is the next step One Nation is calling on the Government to take.

Transcript

Mr President

Since 2016 One Nation has been campaigning for natural, Australian, whole plant medical cannabis under doctor’s prescription, available through chemists on the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme.

So far in 2021 the TGA has approved 184,000 applications for medical cannabis – an exponential increase, with Queensland leading the way.

The world hasn’t ended. Nothing harmful happened.

People are being healed.

The first cannabis product has now been approved for supply under the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme for Dravet’s syndrome. It’s an extract not whole plant, yet at least it’s a natural product.

One Nation worked with the Government to introduce new cannabis licensing for export producers in 2019 that’s been largely responsible for the increase.

At the time the cannabis community did not understand why One Nation was celebrating regulation changes that provide companies with the certainty needed to enter export markets.

We’re now seeing the benefit of One Nation’s advocacy. Businesses expanded production for export and have been able to supply some of that product into the Australian prescription market.

This caused prices to fall and increased the range of available options, quality and availability.

In a Senate speech in 2019 I quoted a Roy Morgan survey that found medical cannabis could help one million Australians a year. That’s looking accurate.

Most of the growth in medical cannabis has come from pain relief, just one of the many uses for medical cannabis.

In 2019, 1000 Australians died of overdoses from prescription pain killers.

No-one’s ever died from prescription medical cannabis. There are more lives to be saved here moving patients from fatal narcotic drugs to medical cannabis.

I urge the Government to widen approved use of medical cannabis to include epilepsy and chemotherapy support, amongst others.

Our people, our community and our nation deserve improved access to medical cannabis.