{"id":595604,"date":"2026-04-09T12:04:25","date_gmt":"2026-04-09T12:04:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/595604\/"},"modified":"2026-04-09T12:04:25","modified_gmt":"2026-04-09T12:04:25","slug":"should-clinics-prescribe-medicinal-cannabis-that-they-also-supply-we-asked-5-experts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/595604\/","title":{"rendered":"Should clinics prescribe medicinal cannabis that they also supply? We asked 5 experts"},"content":{"rendered":"

You can have an online consultation, be prescribed medicinal cannabis, and have it sent directly to your home, in a seamless operation. This one-stop-shop certainly sounds convenient.<\/p>\n

But not everyone\u2019s happy.<\/p>\n

Industry observers<\/a>, doctors and pharmacists<\/a> call these one-stop-shops \u201cvertical integration<\/a>\u201d. That\u2019s when the person who prescribes medicinal cannabis or the clinic that employs them has a financial relationship with the manufacturer of the product and\/or the business that dispenses it.<\/p>\n

Critics say it\u2019s where prescribers \u2013 GPs, specialist doctors or nurse practitioners<\/a> \u2013 can feel pressured<\/a> to prescribe what will make money for clinics, pharmacies and suppliers. It\u2019s a system where patients can be prescribed medicinal cannabis, despite good clinical reasons not to<\/a>. It can also lock in patients to specific products or pharmacies<\/a>.<\/p>\n

So should clinics be allowed to prescribe medicinal cannabis if they have financial links to the supplier or dispenser? <\/p>\n

We asked five experts. Five out of five said no.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

CC BY-NC<\/a><\/p>\n

Medicinal cannabis prescriptions have skyrocketed in Australia, mostly for legal but unapproved products we don\u2019t even know work or are safe. In this series<\/a>, experts tease out what\u2019s fuelling the rise of medicinal cannabis, the fallout, and what needs to happen next.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"You can have an online consultation, be prescribed medicinal cannabis, and have it sent directly to your home,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":595605,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[64,63,137,500],"class_list":["post-595604","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-healthcare","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-health","tag-healthcare"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/595604","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=595604"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/595604\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/595605"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=595604"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=595604"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=595604"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}