Access to cannabis-based products improving

Associate Health Minister Peter Dunne says that statistics provided to him by the Ministry of Health show progress is being made in improving access to cannabis-based products.

“Since 2014, 167 applications have been approved by either me or the Ministry of Health, compared to just 43 in the six years prior.

“For the same period, the average processing time for applications has dropped from a peak of 27 days in 2014, to 13.4 days in 2017.

“It is my hope that as more products come to market we will continue to see increases and improvements in these data”, says Mr Dunne.

From 8 February this year applications from specialists to the Ministry to prescribe non-pharmaceutical cannabis-based products no longer needed Ministerial approval with decision-making for the prescribing of all cannabis-based products delegated to the Ministry of Health.

Since the first application for cannabis-based products was approved at Ministerial level in 2008, guidelines have been developed, consulted on and simplified to allow specialists who are interested in accessing such products for their patients a clear, straight-forward and unobstructed pathway to acquiring the appropriate products.

“There is no doubt that this streamlined application process administered by the Ministry of Health has made a significant difference to the ease in applying for approval to the use and access these products”, Mr Dunne said.

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