Should clinics prescribe medicinal cannabis that they also supply? We asked 5 experts

You can have an online consultation, be prescribed medicinal cannabis, and have it sent directly to your home, in a seamless operation. This one-stop-shop certainly sounds convenient.

But not everyone’s happy.

Industry observers, doctors and pharmacists call these one-stop-shops “vertical integration”. That’s when the person who prescribes medicinal cannabis or the clinic that employs them has a financial relationship with the manufacturer of the product and/or the business that dispenses it.

Critics say it’s where prescribers – GPs, specialist doctors or nurse practitioners – can feel pressured to prescribe what will make money for clinics, pharmacies and suppliers. It’s a system where patients can be prescribed medicinal cannabis, despite good clinical reasons not to. It can also lock in patients to specific products or pharmacies.

So should clinics be allowed to prescribe medicinal cannabis if they have financial links to the supplier or dispenser?

We asked five experts. Five out of five said no.

Medicinal cannabis prescriptions have skyrocketed in Australia, mostly for legal but unapproved products we don’t even know work or are safe. In this series, experts tease out what’s fuelling the rise of medicinal cannabis, the fallout, and what needs to happen next.

Barbara Mintzes, Professor in Pharmaceutical Policy, School of Pharmacy and Charles Perkins Centre, University of Sydney; Betty Chaar, Pharmacist and Professor in Professional Ethics in Pharmacy, University of Sydney; Christine Mary Hallinan, Senior Research Fellow, Department of General Practice and Primary Care, Faculty of Medicine, Dentistry and Health Sciences, The University of Melbourne; Christopher Rudge, Lecturer in Law, Sydney Law School, University of Sydney, and Wendy Lipworth, Professor of Bioethics, Macquarie University

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