Colin Thornton, Federal
Now that medicinal cannabis is finally legal you would think that it would be freely available. But doctors who have tried to access it on behalf of needy patients have found themselves forced through so many legal hoops and obstacles that it becomes almost impossible. And then, if it is actually obtained, the (imported) product is prohibitively expensive.
Why should this be?
Put simply, it is to protect the thriving opium poppy industry in Tasmania, which produces about half of the world’s legal opium. Our lords and masters are afraid that (harmless) cannabis will displace (potentially lethal) opiates in many pain relief medicines and thus threaten this worldwide multi-million-dollar death-dealing industry.
In fact Dr John Skerritt, the head of the Australian Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA), was quoted in 2018 as saying quite clearly, ‘I am not going to destroy the poppy industry in Tasmania for medicinal cannabis.’ (SMH Good Weekend August 24).
The number of Australians dying from accidental drug overdoses has climbed by almost 40 per cent in the last decade, and now exceeds the national road toll by several hundred people each year. Of this number, 53 per cent were because of opioids. (ABC News August 27)
The Australian TGA was once recognised as the world leader for integrity in the medical field. Sadly this is no longer so.
For four decades The Echo has printed the stories some people loved, some people hated, and some pretended not to read. If you want us to keep telling the truth, the real truth, not the sugar-coated version. We’ll need your support to keep the presses rolling. 
