Wednesday, 18 March 2026

 Rachel PAYNE (South-Eastern Metropolitan) (18:29): (2426) My adjournment matter is for the Minister for Health, and the action I seek is for the minister to support greater investment in medicinal cannabis research, including into its potential use as a treatment for opioid use disorder. Supplying controlled release opioids in a regular manner in the community has been a longstanding treatment for opioid use disorder. However, the Victorian Department of Health is currently working with Harm Reduction Victoria on opportunities to improve our pharmacotherapy services. I would like to talk about one such opportunity. Preliminary evidence shows that medicinal cannabis could play an important role as an emerging therapy for opioid use disorder. However, further research is needed to develop reliable evidence and understand the various nuances of how medicinal cannabis could be used alongside existing treatments. We should work hand in hand with our federal counterparts to fund these areas of emerging research and ensure that the TGA guidelines support us to do so. For too long stigma and criminalisation have made it far too difficult for many kinds of research to be done into cannabis. When research was done, it often assumed a negative outcome. Even now understandings of the numerous medicinal purposes for cannabis use are still evolving. While we are slowly getting there, there is still a long way to go when it comes to building the research base for the many uses for medicinal cannabis. The frustrating part of this is that we already know what the research will tell us. I, as a cannabis consumer, know that it does benefit my health and what it does for others. That is why it is so frustrating that we have to fight tooth and nail to have it taken seriously and receive the research funding it deserves. For a condition as debilitating as opioid use disorder, medicinal cannabis could be a game changer. But we do not know what we do not know, and until the funding and the research are there, we are not doing all that we can to help people who are suffering. So I ask: will the minister support greater investment in medicinal cannabis research, including in its potential use as a treatment for opioid use disorder?