Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputies for raising this matter. The best approach to be taken in this case is for the patient concerned to get a prescription from a specialist. A specialist doctor is required, and he or she must be willing to prescribe the drug and monitor it for side effects and efficacy. The Minister for Health has already issued seven or eight licences on that basis and has not refused any application for such a licence. The best thing to do would be to get a prescription from a qualified specialist, which is the normal way people acquire medicines. The Minister can issue a licence if a prescription is given. We acknowledge that the current process is cumbersome. The Minister is working on a cannabis access programme which will make it easier for people to access medicinal cannabis. There are grave difficulties with the proposal that the medicine be made available in pharmacies because it is not a licensed medicine. A licensed medicine must be produced to certain standards and sourcing this product in that way is already proving difficult.

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