Dr. Elaine Breslin:

No; it is pure plant-derived CBD. That medicine is currently under development and is going through clinical trials. One paper has been published that gives evidence of some efficacy across a group of epilepsy disorders and other trials are currently under evaluation by the company, which has issued press statements, but we cannot draw any conclusions on the basis of that. The committee will understand that the normal process is for the papers to be published in peer reviewed journals and the medical community will discuss the evidence that is available. We understand, however, that the company developing the medicine is planning to make an application in Europe and the US later this year.

The conditions we have chosen have objective end-points that can be measured by consultants monitoring a patient. Reductions in spasticity and the number of seizures as well as the control of the nausea and vomiting associated with chemotherapy can be assessed. These are, therefore, objective end-points. One of the problems one sees with the studies is that cannabis is found to be effective on subjective end-points or patient related effects, whereas when a consultant or doctor treating the patient examines the objective end-points, he or she finds that the efficacy and effectiveness are not necessarily shown. There are objective end-points for the three conditions. This is terribly important because this is a monitored pilot programme which will be available to a limited number of patients with the specified conditions under consultant care. It is important that at the end of the five-year pilot programme, data will be available to show how the cannabis was used for the conditions in question and whether it worked for the individual patients. This is not the type of data that would be suitable for publication in the sense of allowing others to draw conclusions. However, it will inform the future direction of cannabis use in Ireland.