Page 4468 - Week 14 - Thursday, 1 December 1994
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It shows that people are smarting. The petulant behaviour that we observed in question time today from Mr Moore and Mrs Carnell does not do credit to this place. I will refer, Madam Speaker, firstly, to Mr Humphries's allegations. Mr Humphries says that I have misled this place because I have referred to an open slather approach to cannabis. Now, he says, to the supply of cannabis. We do not have the Hansard record in front of us, and we had a fairly heated question time today. Let me state my understanding of the position, and my understanding of what I have said here and in other places: The ACT, yesterday, embarked on a dangerous approach of open slather to the use of cannabis. I base that on legal advice which I today tabled in this place.
That legal advice very clearly refutes the claims that Mrs Carnell and Mr Moore have been making, that the amendment moved yesterday is somehow linked to Part IV of the Act. As I said yesterday, very clearly - I urged members to listen to me yesterday - Part IV of the Act presently provides a mechanism whereby cannabis or another drug can be made available for research purposes. A doctor who wants to engage in medical research, who believes that cannabis may be an effective therapeutic agent, can seek approval, can develop clinical protocols, research protocols. There is all that technical language in Part IV of the Act. It can be done.
I said yesterday that your section 171B was unnecessary. If all it was meant to do was to duplicate those careful clinical research protocols it was unnecessary, and if it went further it was dangerous. You said yesterday, clearly, that you did not want to duplicate it. "Oh, no", you said, "We do not want all these complex clinical protocols". That was reminiscent of the language used in the AIDS press release. You wanted to be able to do it on a case basis; so that people can keep case notes; so that people can prescribe the drug; so long as they keep case notes they will be all right. If that is what you intended to do yesterday, and it seemed to be what you said that you intended to do - although Mrs Carnell denies that today - the legal advice that we have suggests that that is exactly what you did do.
The advice which I tabled today makes it very clear at page 3 that the term "medical research" is not defined in the Drugs of Dependence Act. You have not defined it. It could not be linked into Part IV of the Act anyway because it is not used in Part IV of the Act. Part IV of the Act refers to research generally. Section 171B of the Act is in no way linked to the clinical research provisions of Part IV of the Act. If a doctor prescribes cannabis, if he writes an authorisation for use of cannabis under section 171B - I have put this in lay terms, to the national media and to this place - on the legal advice that I have tabled, he is in no way constrained by the clinical research protocols and procedures as safeguards of Part IV of the Act.
What does the Government Solicitor say about how a doctor may go about it? What do you need to do to be conducting medical research? He says that it is not defined. He cannot find any guidance in Part IV of the Act. He says at page 4:
My conclusion is that the term "medical research" used in section 171B is not restricted by the provisions of Part IV and could indeed have a very wide and possibly unrealistic interpretation.
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