Medicinal cannabis doctors ‘relying on public hospitals to pick up the pieces’, warns State Health Minister
Tim Nicholls says the scale of prescribing of unapproved cannabis drugs is frightening.
Poor clinical decisions to prescribe medicinal cannabis are landing patients in acute mental health units, putting unnecessary pressure on public hospitals, Queensland’s Minister for Health warns.
Tim Nicholls told AusDoc that 120,000 Queenslanders had received an S8 medicinal cannabis script in 2024, “and that’s a frightening number”.
“When I went out and visited the Prince Charles Hospital in Brisbane and the mental health unit there, which is fairly large, I sat down with clinicians,” he said.
“One of the most significant pressures that they raised with me was the overprescription and overuse of medicinal cannabis in clinically unsupported environments.
