Medical board chair’s message to medicinal cannabis doctors: ‘Patient demand is not an indication’Â
Dr Susan O'Dwyer said she was especially concerned about young, inexperienced doctors writing off-label medicinal cannabis scripts.
Doctors prescribing medicinal cannabis are being urged to think about differential diagnoses, monitoring and exit plans after revelations that 441,000 patients started high-THC cannabis over a six-month period.Â
The growing concerns over medicinal cannabis prescribing, especially through short telehealth consultations, follow the release of new figures, including that one doctor apparently wrote more than 17,000 high-THC cannabis scripts, again in just six months.
Medical Board of Australia chair Dr Susan O’Dwyer is calling on doctors to start thinking about THC-heavy cannabis as they would think about opioids.
“Patient demand is not an indication to prescribe medicinal cannabis,” she says.
