Special Access Scheme approvals for medicinal cannabis in October exceeded 12,000 for the second month running, but fell short of setting another record, according to preliminary data from the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA).
Although the number of approvals has not been formally published, the new TGA medicinal cannabis dashboard says there were 12,206 SAS-B approvals last month. In September there were 13,666 approvals.
It is unclear if that is the final October tally. Regardless, the number represents another healthy month of prescriptions and takes the rolling 12-month total to 110,612.
Calendar year approvals sit at just under 100,000, with two months remaining.
The data showed there were 983 prescribers in October, down from 1,016 in September, with 2,260 schedule 4 approvals and just over 9,900 for schedule 8.
The split between oil and flower remained largely unchanged, at 55% and 41% respectively.