Readers blog: Cannabis access programme is far too restrictive
I am very pleased that Ava Barry has been granted a licence for medicinal cannabis.
The Barry family have been in the Netherlands since June and have been waiting to be prescribed medicinal cannabis for their daughter Ava.
The Compassionate Access Programme cannot in any way address the medical needs of the huge number of people that could benefit from access to medicinal cannabis. This means that the only way to guarantee broad-based access is via primary legislation in the form of his Cannabis for Medicinal Use Regulation Bill 2016.
No family or individual should ever have to go through what the Barry family have gone through in the past five months.
They sought out clinical evidence in a different country in order to come back to Ireland
to prove that this treatment works. This treatment should be prescribed and available in Ireland by a trained medical doctor.
If there is a lesson to be learned from all this is that the licencing system by the minister for health is unworkable and not fit for purpose for the many who want to access this medicine.
There are potentially thousands of people who could benefit from access to medicinal cannabis.
The minister’s access programme is too restrictive and cumbersome and it will be unable to provide access to medicinal cannabis for people.
People suffering from MS, chronic pain, nausea from chemotherapy and a number of other conditions could benefit from pain relief that can be found in medicinal cannabis.
It is vital that my bill proceeds past the committee stage of the Dáil so that these people can gain access to medicinal cannabis.
