Doctors in New South Wales will be able to prescribe cannabis

Citizens of New South Wales (NSW), Australia’s most populous state, will be able to register to use cannabis for medical conditions starting next year. Legislation is due to be released within weeks.

The scheme will include both a clinical trial and a plan to offer several categories of gravely ill people, among them Aids, cancer and multiple sclerosis sufferers, immediate access to cannabis. "The NSW proposal would involve two parallel initiatives, namely clinical research trials and a compassionate access scheme," Trish Worth, Parliamentary Secretary to the Federal Minister of Health said.

The NSW Government plans to create an Office of Medical Cannabis in the NSW Department of Health. Ms Worth confirmed that the Federal Government supported the scheme as long as it complied with medical guidelines and international narcotics agreements.

(Source: The Australian of 28 September 2003)

*Industrial-Hemp has no psychoactive properties following definition of the European Economic Community (EEC); THC content is less than 0.3%. In general, low THC-seed varieties without psychoactive properties are those that have a THC content of less than 1%. (See also No-THC Hemp-seed.) THC= Delta-9 TetraHydroCannabinol.