Health Minister and Deputy Premier Roger Cook admits cannabis use at uni, rules out legalising it in WA

Deputy Premier Roger Cook has opened up about how he used marijuana with friends while studying at university. The Health Minister made the admission during a debate on Seven West Media’s Flashpoint current affairs panel show surrounding the availability of medical cannabis. But he ruled out WA following the ACT Government by legalising personal cannabis use. “When I was a lot younger as a university student, like some of my peers, I tried cannabis,” Mr Cook, who studied arts and public administration at Murdoch University, said. “In line with the McGowan Labor Government, I do not support the decriminalisation of cannabis for recreational use and that will never happen under this Government.” Flashpoint tonight tackles the polarising debate surrounding how easy it should be for seriously ill West Australians to use medical cannabis as pain relief or treatment. When it was revealed Australians have one of the highest rates of recreational marijuana use in the world, with about 40 per cent of people having tried it at some point in their life, host Tim McMillan put to the panel that the statistics mean at least two of them should fall into that category. He then asked for a show of hands, to which Mr Cook, AMA WA president Andrew Miller and Shellie Martin, whose seriously ill 10-year-old daughter relies on medical cannabis, confirmed they had. WA Police Commissioner Chris Dawson and Little Green Pharma managing director Fleta Solomon, whose Australian-based company produces medicinal cannabis products, did not raise their hands. During debate over the availability of medical cannabis, Ms Solomon argued that despite the product being legalised in WA access was sometimes a drawn-out process because patients needed authorisation from their specialist as well as their GP. “Finding a specialist that is educated in prescribing cannabinoid medicines is one thing but the time associated with the wait, for example, some neurologists you might have to wait up to a year, and the costs to see these people is significant,” she said. Mr Cook said a review of access and affordability of medical cannabis was taking place. Dr Miller said while he accepted that in some cases specialists did not need to be consulted in addition to a patient’s GP, more trials and research were needed on the use of medical cannabis before it was more widely and freely prescribed. “We need to understand why the introduction of this particular drug has been so different to all the other drugs,” he said. “It has been quite appropriate for the government to be quite hesitant because of the lack of evidence. I think we are at a stage in Western Australia where we should look seriously at making this more available so that we can conduct the trials and collect the data which is frankly absent from the debate.” Ms Martin said cannabis oils had drastically changed her daughter Sophie’s life for the better and that she supported more ill West Australian’s having access to the treatment. She said they were lucky to receive medical cannabis oil through Perth Children’s Hospital for their daughter but that if they were paying the market price of several hundred dollars per 25ml bottle it would be tough to afford. Mr Dawson said while he supported the use of medical cannabis in prescribed circumstances, it was a significantly different product to the marijuana that police seized from drug dealers and contained far lower percentage of harmful THC. He said police would continue to charge people who sought cannabis from the black-market or grew it themself to self-medicate. “We have to be very careful about public education, there is a distinction between what is illicit and what is medicinal,” Mr Dawson said. Watch Flashpoint tonight at 9pm on 7