Professor David Finn:

Hitherto we have been somewhat hindered, especially for clinical trials. I believe that a process could be put in place and a framework, perhaps to allow for some types of research in the absence of a broader legalisation for medical use. Maybe the type of research that could not take place unless it was a broader type of legalisation would be population-based research. Perhaps researchers could do focused and well-defined studies on a small number of patients, if we were granted a licence just for research. That probably could happen. I am not an expert in the law on that but I would feel that there probably would be a way to achieve that. The type of research that looks at population-based effects and the use of cannabinoids or medical cannabis in a larger group of patients across different parts of the country or across the country as a whole probably could not take place.

I was talking about two limitations of the research. At present, one would be the short-term nature of the studies. I suppose population-based research gets at that a bit better. The other limitation would be that some of the studies have used relatively low N-numbers, that is, low sample sizes. If we are to do studies that include a significant number of patients and a big enough sample size, population-based research can help to achieve that as well. It depends on the type of research that one is talking about.