The push for medicinal cannabis to become widely available will be examined at a seminar in Newcastle on Friday.
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In the United States, medicinal cannabis is now allowed in 31 of 50 states.
In Australia, advocates are pushing for legal use of the plant extract for a range of medical conditions.
This campaign has prompted the NSW Nurses and Midwives’ Association to hold a day-long seminar on medicinal cannabis.
The event, to be held at Wests New Lambton Bowling Club, is titled Medicinal Cannabis: Debunking the Myths.
Rita Martin, the association’s government and community relations organiser, said there was “huge interest from our members” in medicinal cannabis.
“I believe it will eventually be widely and freely available in Australia,” Ms Martin said.
Given this, she said it was essential for nurses to know more about it. The main aim of the seminar is informing nurses about medicinal cannabis, how it works and the regulations around it.
It will feature several expert speakers, including a leading nurse from the renowned cannabis clinic Tikun Olam in Israel.
Lucy Haslam, United in Compassion co-founder and a retired nurse, will be among the speakers.
Ms Haslam witnessed the dramatic relief that medicinal cannabis gave her son Dan, while he was suffering from bowel cancer. He died in 2015.
“Nurses are the most sympathetic members of the healthcare team,” she said.
“Nurses are the ones with the patient, long after the doctor has left the bedside.
“So I think they’re the right people to inform and assist their patients.”
She said it was a shame that many doctors don’t appear to support medicinal cannabis.
“Doctors are irrelevant in the whole scheme of things because the patients use the black market,” she said.
“Nurses carry a lot of sway, whether doctors like it or not. They can support their patients who are currently not being supported by doctors.”
In NSW, medicinal cannabis trials have involved advanced cancer patients, people suffering nausea and vomiting from chemotherapy, and children with severe epilepsy.
The federal government has also passed laws to enable the cultivation of cannabis in Australia for medical and scientific purposes.
Advocates are pushing for medicinal cannabis to become available for conditions like chronic pain, Parkinson’s, multiple sclerosis, Crohn's, colitis, loss of appetite in the aged, insomnia, fibromyalgia, arthritis, HIV and palliative care.
A spokeswoman for the federal Department of Health said there was “a significant need for larger, high-quality studies of medicinal cannabis”.
This was needed to “better explore the potential benefits, limitations and safety issues” across a “range of health conditions and symptoms”.
“Further research may also compare medicinal cannabis with standard medication options.”
This would build knowledge on “how medicinal cannabis interacts with other medical treatments”.
Ms Haslam said many in the healthcare sector “deny the research that’s been done in other countries”.
She said Australia’s medicinal cannabis scheme was failing.
“It’s completely political,” she said, adding that the influence of pharmaceutical companies appeared to be a factor.
“Patients have been the last considered in the whole debate.”
The health department said the “guidance for the use of medicinal cannabis in Australia considered the available evidence in the international literature”.
“The TGA [Therapeutic Goods Administration] recognises and accepts high-quality evidence in new-medicine applications”, including that gathered from “international sources”.
