Legalise Cannabis Party senate candidate in WA Jason Meotti has slammed the Australian Medical Association (AMA) for its position on cannabis compared to alcohol, claiming the body is driven more by politics than science.
The Queensland branch of the AMA recently co-signed letters to the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) and state and federal health ministers Tim Nicholls and Mark Butler expressing concerns about medicinal cannabis.
The body’s South Australia branch has also recently joined the pile on.
The medical body urged the TGA to remove medicinal cannabis from the special access scheme (SAS) and expressed concerns to Nicholls and Butler about “increasing patient harms, particularly psychotic illnesses and associated adverse outcomes, resulting from inappropriate prescribing” of the medicine.
However, Meotti said alcohol costs the community $3.50 for every standard drink consumed in Australia, and suggested the AMA has been silent on changes to reduce its harm in meaningful ways.
“You look at the AMA’s policy on alcohol and it’s woefully inadequate,” he said. “It either points out the howlingly obvious or ignores the gorilla in the room – which is the broken excise system.
“The current alcohol excise system allows the ridiculous scenario where a $10, four-litre wine cask contains the same amount of alcohol as two $40 bottles of spirits. But the AMA seems okay with that.”
Meotti claimed the medical body is driven more by political views than scientific evidence.
“The current AMA, with less than 20% of doctors as members, has been a strident opponent of cannabis law reform – despite the overwhelming evidence that cannabis is a healing medicine for a variety of conditions.
“I have been a chronic pain sufferer for over 15 years. Since I’ve been able to access safe, legalised cannabis for my condition, my use of opioids has dramatically reduced and my quality of life has improved markedly. Hundreds of thousands of Australians have had similar outcomes.
“But when you look at the AMA’s policy on legalising cannabis, it is full of inconsistencies and political myths.”
Meotti, who was a key player in the decriminalisation of cannabis in WA in the early 2000s, said he had the backing of the WA Branch of the AMA at the time.
“Unfortunately, they now ignore the fact that in every jurisdiction which has implemented cannabis law reform, including WA when it was decriminalised between 2005 and 2010, usage rates among teenagers decreased.
“It is irresponsible and dangerous for an organisation that purportedly speaks on behalf of doctors to be maintaining a purely political position.
“The AMA continues to ignore the science and evidence that clearly indicates far more positives for society from a regulated, legal cannabis market than maintaining the status quo – which only benefits criminals and corrupt officials.”
