The Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency (Ahpra) has reminded medical cannabis prescribers to put patients’ wellbeing above profit.
Since legalised in 2016, medical cannabis has really taken off in Australia. According to Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, in 2022–2023, 3% of Australians had used cannabis for medical purposes in the previous 12 months; equating to around 700,000 people. And the numbers today would be even higher.
The situation has led to concerns about poor prescribing practices becoming more common. Extreme examples include eight practitioners who have issued more than 10,000 scripts in a six-month window — and one who appears to have issued over 17,000 scripts.
Other poor practices observed include:
- Consultations lasting a few seconds or minutes.
- Prescription without a legitimate condition.
- Inadequate patient assessment.
- Not properly verifying identification.
- Prescribing excessive quantities.
- Lack of coordination with a patient’s other treating practitioners.
- Self-prescribing or prescribing to family members.
- Conflicts of interest
With regard to the last point, Ahpra CEO Justin Untersteiner says:
“Some business models that have emerged in this area rely on prescribing a single product or class of drug and use online questionnaires that coach patients to say ‘the right thing’ to justify prescribing medicinal cannabis.”.
Ahpra says the situation is leading to significant patient harm such as psychotic episodes requiring hospital admission.
Updated guidance from Ahpra and the National Boards has been recently released to help practitioners meet their obligations when prescribing. There’s nothing particularly new in it and rules haven’t been changed — this is to just remind prescribers of their obligations, and acts as a shot across the bows for those that aren’t observing them. The new advice also builds on existing regulatory guidance about safe care.
Ahpra has warned:
“We will investigate practitioners with high rates of prescribing any scheduled medicine, including medicinal cannabis, even if we have not received a complaint.”
Ahpra’s guidance for medical cannabis prescribing can be viewed here.
The organisation is also encouraging reporting of bad prescribing behaviour:
“We encourage patients and practitioners to report unsafe practice. Call our Notifications Hotline on 1300 361 041 to report bad practice and help protect others.”
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