The peak medical body in Australia says it does not support the Greens bill to legalise cannabis because of the health harms the drug poses, despite other health experts supporting the public health benefits of a regulatory regime.
The Australian Medical Association has released its submission to the Senate inquiry into the legalising cannabis bill, introduced by the Greens senator David Shoebridge in August.
Cannabis is legal for therapeutic purposes in Australia, with health professionals allowed to prescribe cannabis products on a case-by-case basis. But Shoebridge’s bill would legalise cannabis for recreational use among adults and regulate the growing, selling and manufacturing of the drug.
Cannabis remains the most widely used illegal drug in Australia, with more than one in 10 Australians (11.6%) reporting having used it within the last year, according to the most recent National Drug Strategy Household Survey which was conducted in 2019.
The president of the AMA, Prof Steve Robson, said: “Legalising cannabis for recreational purposes sends the wrong signal to the public, and especially to young Australians, that cannabis use is not harmful.”
The submission highlighted the poor mental health outcomes from cannabis use including anxiety, panic attacks, paranoia, memory loss and an increased incidence of schizophrenia, as well as physical ill-health conditions such as bronchitis or cancer, cardiovascular system damage and impaired reaction time and brain function.
The submission pointed to “mixed findings” from Canada, the Netherlands and some jurisdictions of the US which have legalised cannabis for recreational use. It said there was not sufficient evidence of the health and social costs and benefits to legalise recreational cannabis in Australia.
The AMA said it was concerned that “cannabis cafés”, proposed in the bill, could normalise cannabis use and the lack of restriction on locations where the drug could be sold could lead retailers to target vulnerable groups. Citing Guardian Australia’s reporting of vape stores opening close to schools, the submission stated: “we cannot make the same mistake with cannabis products.”
The AMA said it recognised the current approach to cannabis regulation could be improved, with criminal penalties for personal cannabis adding to the potential health risks cannabis users were exposed to. The submission instead proposed that civil penalties should replace criminal ones, so that “when cannabis users come into contact with the police or courts, the opportunity should be taken to divert those users to preventive, educational and therapeutic options”.
Public health research organisation the Penington Institute’s submission “strongly endorsed” a legal regulated cannabis regime which it said was “superior” to the current prohibition regime.
“Cannabis prohibition doesn’t work: it fails to control supply, leaves the market in the hands of criminals, and costs billions of dollars in enforcement, all while hindering a public health-led approach to managing the health harms that are associated with problematic cannabis use.”
Prof Matthew Large, a conjoint professor in psychiatry at the University of New South Wales, said the status quo in Australia was the “worst of all possible worlds”; the medicalisation of cannabis gives it a “therapeutic halo” but the lack of regulation means no package of cannabis carries any health warnings.
“Whether cannabis is safe or not is seen through the prism of whether it’s legal or not but those are two different things,” Large said. He believes the debate around cannabis is distorted by the question of legality, when in fact a legal cannabis regime could bring greater public awareness about the dangers of cannabis through measures like a public health campaign and warning labels.
The peak body for general practitioners, the Royal Australian College of GPs, used their submission “to emphasise the need to seriously consider the potential impacts of this bill on public health”.
The submission, authored by the RACGP president, Nicole Higgins, said “there is strong evidence that recreational cannabis is harmful, particularly to susceptible groups such as people with mental health disorders, young people and the unborn child”.
“If the bill became law, it would be essential to run a comprehensive public awareness campaign about the potential harms of cannabis,” Higgins wrote.
