The Australian Medical Association (AMA) is supporting a crackdown on exploitation of the country's Special Access Scheme (SAS) and Authorised Prescriber Scheme (APS); particularly in relation to medicinal cannabis (MC).
The SAS and APS are regulatory pathways that allow patients to access unapproved therapeutic goods when necessary.
The SAS enables individual patients access to such products on a case-by-case basis, but a healthcare practitioner must apply to the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) on the patient's behalf. The APS enables approved medical practitioners to prescribe specific unapproved products to a class of patients with a particular medical condition, without needing to apply for each individual case.
Medical cannabis was legalized in Australia in 2016. While MC prescribing is tightly controlled in the country, there are weaknesses in regulations – particularly given the rise of telehealth. An example of a concerning situation was a medical practitioner treating more than 31,000 patients with MC within six months.
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