Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

It is unfortunate that many of my questions have not been answered. I asked the following direct question. What specific expertise and knowledge does the Department of Health, the PSI or the HPRA have in the area of cannabis? I do not doubt that the organisations employs experts in their fields. I want to know who we have taken advice from. Are they experts who know nothing or a lot about cannabis? I suggest to Mr. Lennon that we would be better off taking advice from experts who know something or a lot about cannabis. I wish to advise the committee that I shall formally write to the clerk of the committee requesting that the committee arranges an engagement with Professor Mike Barnes. It is the least that we can do if we want to have a comprehensive view of this matter. I say to Mr. Lennon that the fact the British political system has not responded to the recommendations made by Professor Barnes is irrelevant. Will our attitude to medicinal cannabis be informed by somebody as expert and knowledgeable as Professor Barnes or by people who have no knowledge whatsoever about cannabis? Professor David Finn is professor of pharmacology and has studied cannabis for 16 years. He explained in great detail how there was strong evidence at every level to support the efficacy of cannabis-based products to relieve pain, as did Professor Barnes.

Professor Finn told this committee that there was a significant unmet need. I asked the witnesses what they would do to solve the unmet need. Mr. Lennon told me how many or how few thousand people availed of access programme in other countries but he did not answer my question. What will the Department's access programme do for the unmet need whereby people do not get pain relief from existing drugs? I put it to him that the programme will leave them out in the cold and label them criminals if they attempt to access the product. I asked the witnesses whether they thought it acceptable that such people were criticised and that the access programme left them out in the cold. I put it to them that it is unacceptable. I further asked them to respond to the fact that the majority of GPs in this country, and a higher proportion of GPs with specific knowledge in the area of addiction, favour the decriminalising of cannabis for medicinal purposes. Why have the witnesses not taken the lead from them?