{"id":8793,"date":"2025-10-14T11:22:58","date_gmt":"2025-10-14T11:22:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/australian-doctors-warn-of-excessive-medical-weed-prescriptions\/"},"modified":"2025-10-14T11:22:58","modified_gmt":"2025-10-14T11:22:58","slug":"australian-doctors-warn-of-excessive-medical-weed-prescriptions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/australian-doctors-warn-of-excessive-medical-weed-prescriptions\/","title":{"rendered":"Australian doctors warn of &#8216;excessive&#8217; medical weed prescriptions"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<div><\/div>\n<p>Australia&rsquo;s medical cannabis industry is &ldquo;excessively&rdquo; prescribing weed with little oversight and needs urgent regulation, the country&rsquo;s top doctors association and pharmacists warned on Tuesday.<\/p>\n<p>Legalised for medical use in 2016, Australians are estimated to have spent up to $500 million on licit pot last year, according to a think tank.<\/p>\n<p>But on Tuesday the Australian Medical Association (AMA) and the Pharmacy Guild of Australia said the industry was too often issuing prescriptions without &ldquo;proper clinical oversight&rdquo;.<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;Urgent action is needed to ensure medicinal cannabis is prescribed, dispensed and regulated in the same manner as other registered drugs of dependence,&rdquo; AMA President Danielle McMullen said.<\/p>\n<p>While acknowledging evidence suggesting medical cannabis can help treat epilepsy, chemotherapy-induced nausea or Multiple Sclerosis, doctors warned the system was being &ldquo;exploited&rdquo;.<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;There is little, or no evidence base for many of the conditions for which it is being prescribed, such as anxiety, insomnia or depression,&rdquo; McMullen said.<\/p>\n<div class=\"internal-linking-related-contents\"><a href=\"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/12-weeks-jail-for-school-it-support-technician-who-took-upskirt-videos-of-teachers\/\" class=\"template-1\"><span class=\"cta\">News :<\/span><span class=\"postTitle\">&lt;div&gt;12 weeks' jail for school IT support technician who took upskirt videos of teachers&lt;\/div&gt;<\/span><\/a><\/div><p>In their submission to an Australian government inquiry into the industry, the AMA called for &ldquo;comprehensive reform&rdquo; of the way medical cannabis was bought and sold.<\/p>\n<p>Members working in emergency departments were calling for more resources to deal with growing numbers of patients with cases related to excessive intake of cannabis, including psychosis, they said.<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;Alarmingly, doctors are seeing medicinal cannabis use in people who have pre-existing psychotic conditions,&rdquo; they warned.<\/p>\n<p>The AMA warned telehealth models &mdash; in which patients can be issued prescriptions online without an in-person doctor visit &mdash; were being &ldquo;exploited as commercial pathways for unapproved products&rdquo;.<\/p>\n<p>This year, newspaper the Age revealed that one doctor working for medical cannabis giant Montu had issued 72,000 prescriptions to 10,000 patients in just two years.<\/p>\n<p>In some instances, the newspaper reported, consultations with patients were scheduled to last no longer than 10 minutes.<\/p>\n<div class=\"internal-linking-related-contents\"><a href=\"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/migrant-acquitted-in-first-trial-over-us-border-military-zones\/\" class=\"template-1\"><span class=\"cta\">News :<\/span><span class=\"postTitle\">Migrant acquitted in first trial over US border military zones<\/span><\/a><\/div><p>The global medical cannabis market is expected to grow to over $65 billion by 2030, according to consulting firm Grand View Research.<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<span class=\"small-caps text-small text-serif\" itemprop=\"copyrightHolder\">&copy;  2025 AFP<\/span><\/p><\/div>\n<p><sub><\/sub><\/p>\n<div>Australian doctors warn of &lsquo;excessive&rsquo; medical weed prescriptions<\/div>\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Australia&rsquo;s medical cannabis industry is &ldquo;excessively&rdquo; prescribing weed with little oversight and needs urgent regulation, the country&rsquo;s top doctors association and pharmacists warned on Tuesday. Legalised for medical use in 2016, Australians are estimated to have spent up to $500 million on licit pot last year, according to a think tank. But on Tuesday the&#8230;<\/p>\n<p class=\"more-link-wrap\"><a href=\"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/australian-doctors-warn-of-excessive-medical-weed-prescriptions\/\" class=\"more-link\">Read More<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &ldquo;Australian doctors warn of &#8216;excessive&#8217; medical weed prescriptions&rdquo;<\/span> &raquo;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8794,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8793","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8793","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8793"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8793\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8794"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8793"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8793"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8793"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}