Ireland: People with chronic pain want access to medical cannabis

By Maureen Meehan

In Ireland, people with chronic pain are seeking legal access to medical cannabis, arguing that the current system is too restrictive.

Ireland’s medical marijuana program has only three qualifying conditions: MS-related plasticity, chemotherapy-related nausea and treatment-resistant epilepsy.

Photo by George Hodan via publicdomainpictures

what about us campaign

Advocates suffering from chronic pain have launched the What About Us campaign outside Leinster House, the seat of Ireland’s Parliament in Dublin.

Backed by People Before Profit MP Gino Kenny, the group is calling on the Department of Health to extend the use of medicinal cannabis to people with chronic pain. “The program is too restrictive; It only benefits a handful of people. We think it’s not serving its purpose, so it needs to be expanded,” Kenny said.

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Amy Brown, 29, was among those who gathered outside Leinster House. Brown told RTE, Local News, that she suffers from chronic endometriosis pain and the only effective relief for her is cannabis.

“I’m in agony today. I feel like a screwdriver is being twisted just above my left rib. I actually got nauseous in the car on the way here…”

Brown said she wants cannabis to be made available for medical use because buying it illegally makes her vulnerable to buying a bad or ineffective batch and also encourages crime.

dr Russell Banta, a chemistry researcher at University College Cork, also traveled to Dublin for the demonstration. A bicycle accident four years ago left him with dental, facial and neuropathic pain.

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“If I could just go to a doctor and get a pharmaceutical grade prescription and be monitored on it and find a strain that works the best, it wouldn’t be psychoactive. I can just take a pill in the morning and go about my day, that’s the dream,” Banta said.

Photo by Roxana Gonzalez/EyeEm/Getty Images

Professional support

dr Garrett McGovern, an addiction specialist at Priority Medical Clinic, advocated the expanded use of medicinal cannabis.

“There’s very little high-quality research over here because the drug is illegal, so we can’t have both. We can’t say there isn’t evidence and then we can’t invest in cannabis research. We need to find out both the positive and negative effects of this drug,” he said, per RTE.

This article originally appeared on Benzinga and has been republished with permission.