Australian Doctor Australian Doctor 17th November 2017 | Page 8

News
Grass is greener on the medicinal side
Comment
Dr Mal Washer
I HAD been in politics for 15
years, but my main passion
was still patients.
I also had a personal assis-
tant in my medical centre
who had worked for me for
at least 25 years.
A few years ago, she died
of metastatic ovarian cancer.
She became completely skel-
etal and the sad thing is that
she lived for too long.
The last four months of her
life were dismal. She suffered
terribly from the anorexia,
nausea and other side effects
of chemotherapy. Noth-
ing the oncologist gave her
worked.
It wasn’t their fault, the
medications just didn’t work.
We didn’t have proper treat-
ments for the pain and espe-
cially for the terrible nausea.
That reinforced in me the
need for something better
and that led me to medicinal
cannabis. Since then I’ve been
beating the drum because it’s
been proven to work.
The US National Acad-
emies of Sciences, Engineer-
ing and Medicine brought
together 16 top specialists
to review more than 10,000
abstracts. Their review,
released in January, found
that cannabis could play a
big role in treating chronic
and neuropathic pain. 1
There is less need for opiate
use, and it greatly reduces the
amount of nausea and vom-
iting associated with chemo-
therapy. Other research has
shown promise in dealing
with intractable epilepsy and
spasticity associated with
multiple sclerosis.
Its status as an illicit sub-
stance has hindered research.
However, evidence for its
clinical potential has been
steadily mounting and those
who continue to deny it are
poorly informed.
There’s also been a lot of
negativity from Australia’s
medical profession, but that’s
temporary. Other count