NEWS 5
ausdoc. com. au 22 AUGUST 2025
NEWS 5
Medicinal or recreational cannabis?
This GP says medicinal cannabis prescribing has changed.
Rachel Carter A GP who quit the medicinal cannabis prescribing industry says he worries about the blurred lines between patients and recreational users.
Dr Lawrence Kemp began exploring medicinal cannabis prescribing after moving to Brisbane in 2018, as increasing numbers of patients were asking about it.
When Australian cannabis producer and importer Medcan Australia launched a telehealth clinic called Cann I Help in 2021, Dr Kemp joined to lead its medical team.
His job involved clinical governance, recruitment and organising CPD.
“ I like to think we ran a high-quality clinic,” Dr Kemp told Australian Doctor.
However, after four years, he quit. He said he found that the job of prescribing medicinal cannabis was becoming harder for the doctors.
“ Trying to do the right thing” had become a competitive disadvantage.“ It was difficult to run a clinic focused on long consults and working hard to be compliant when you had other competitors within the industry that were not doing any of that.
“ With the direction the industry was going, it felt like a good time to leave.” Other factors included differing views on the clinic’ s direction between him and directors, which he said he could not discuss because of
Dr Lawrence Kemp.
commercial sensitivities.
He stressed that Cann I Help, which had 40 doctors at its peak, had only one brush with regulators: a TGA advice letter over inappropriate advertising.“ That was very early on,” he said. Did the clinic ever incentivise GPs to write scripts?
‘ For quite a lot, the medical indication is secondary.’
“ Absolutely not. Our doctors and nurse practitioners were paid a set fee for conducting consultations.
“ They had total freedom as to whether they prescribed or not, how much they prescribed and how frequently they followed up.”
What changed dramatically between
2021 and 2025 was the number of available medicinal cannabis products. It grew from around 50 to 1500, he said. This led to“ price parity” between prescribed and black market cannabis.
When Dr Kemp started, patients generally had severe medical problems.“ Frankly, because the price was so much more expensive, people who wanted to access cannabis recreationally would do so through the black market,” he said.
However, as the prices equalised, the boundaries between medicinal and recreational use blurred, he said.
“ I think most patients have genuine medical reasons. But for quite a lot of them, the medical indication is secondary.
“ It has become a much harder job for doctors, and I think a number of players within the industry have capitalised on this market and adopted a very non-medical approach.
“ It is a huge shame because most people I have worked with are dedicated professionals who are genuinely in the business of doing the best they can to serve the needs of patients.”
With AHPRA and the TGA turning the spotlight onto medicinal cannabis prescribing, Dr Kemp suggested making it harder to become an authorised prescriber.
He said he remained“ peripherally involved” with medicinal cannabis prescribing but only for face-to-face patients.
“ I am a believer in cannabis as a medicine, but the industry has changed massively, and not for the better.”
Cann I Help was approached for comment.
Shut up and get back to work?
FROM PAGE 1 Last year, when discussing spit hoods, Ms Finocchiaro said they had“ changed a lot over time and are now effectively a loose mesh netting”, which had“ very minimal impact on the offender”.
In 2017, the royal commission called for a ban on spit hoods following their use at the Don Dale Youth Detention Centre based at the Berrimah adult prison.
“ One of the detainees said that [ the hood ] made him feel like an animal to be walked to the medical area with handcuffs, shackles, a spit mask and holding his arms behind his back— in front of everyone. He said it was humiliating,” the commission report said.
AMA NT president Dr John Zorbas said the Chief Minister needed to take the doctors seriously.
“ These paediatricians reached out to you with serious concerns they had around the health and wellbeing of Territory children,” said Dr Zorbas, an emergency physician.“ They did not cancel clinics to write this letter.” Tensions between the AMA and the NT Government are high.
This month, doctors accused an NT minister of misrepresenting inquest findings on family violence deaths in the Territory.
Coroner Elisabeth Armitage published a 243-page report last year after investigating the deaths of four Aboriginal women.
It highlighted the“ horrifying reality” of domestic violence killings in the NT and revealed that her office had also reviewed the deaths of 68 other women.
But in its response, the government said the report“ failed dismally to hit the mark”, was“ uninspiring”, and its 35 recommendations were“ somewhat underwhelming”.
Minister for Prevention of Domestic Violence Robyn Cahill criticised Coroner Armitage’ s approach, calling the inquest“ protracted”, resulting in“ lengthy reports delivered in a manner seeming to lack the humility one might expect from an officer of the court”.
“ More focused on the reveal rather than the result,” she added.
AMA NT accused her of playing politics, calling the report the“ most comprehensive and detailed analysis of the issue that we have”.
Rates of hospitalisation from domestic and family violence are 20 times higher in the NT than the rest of Australia, with almost twothirds of assaults related to family violence, it said.
HotDoc turns on new telehealth model after GP fallout
Ciara Seccombe GP booking site HotDoc is reviving Telehealth on Demand, a controversial feature that offered fast-tracked telehealth appointments to patients struggling to book with their usual practice.
The original Telehealth on Demand gave patients who were booking“ low-complexity” consultations without nominating a specific GP the option of a booking with a telehealth doctor labelled“ not your regular care team”.
GPs said it fragmented care and siphoned away their regular patients, forcing HotDoc to stop the pilot last month and CEO Dr Ben Hurst to apologise.
“ We have heard your feedback loud and clear: this booking flow felt like it could compromise the trusted relationships you have built with your patients,” he said at the time.
HotDoc said 0.5 % of eligible bookings had resulted in patients choosing the telehealth option.
But this month, HotDoc said Telehealth on Demand was relaunching with changes.
It said the revised feature reminded patients more frequently and clearly that the telehealth doctor did not replace a regular GP.
Patients would also receive more prompts to contact their regular GP
HotDoc said 0.5 % of eligible bookings resulted in patients choosing the telehealth option.
practice directly even when appointments were unavailable, it said.
It said the revised feature could automatically send patient notes from an on-demand appointment to the patient’ s regular GP if the patient consented.
Patients would also receive prompts to book a follow-up appointment with their regular GP.
The original pilot of the system involved 50 telehealth GPs, but HotDoc said the relaunched version would enable any GP using HotDoc to offer Telehealth on Demand appointments.
It said Telehealth on Demand targeted consultations for medical certificates and repeat prescriptions when a patient had already confirmed that their regular GP was unavailable.
Dr Ben Hurst.