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THE AUSTRALIAN FEDERAL GOVERNMENT LEGALISED ACCESS TO MEDICINAL CANNABIS IN 2016: MORE THAN 100 DIFFERENT CANNABIS PRODUCTS ARE NOW AVAILABLE TO PRESCRIBE. MOST ARE ORAL PREPARATIONS (OILS) OR CAPSULES CONTAINING DELTA-9-TETRAHYDROCANNABINOL OR CANNABIDIOL. DRIED-FLOWER PRODUCTS ARE ALSO AVAILABLE: AS MOST PRODUCTS ARE UNREGISTERED DRUGS, PRESCRIBING REQUIRES APPROVAL UNDER THE THERAPEUTIC GOODS ADMINISTRATION SPECIAL ACCESS SCHEME-B OR AUTHORISED PRESCRIBER SCHEME: SPECIAL ACCESS SCHEME CATEGORY B APPLICATIONS CAN BE MADE ONLINE, WITH APPROVAL USUALLY BEING GIVEN WITHIN 24–48 HOURS. HOWEVER, SUPPLY CHAIN PROBLEMS MAY DELAY DISPENSING BY THE PHARMACY: BY THE END OF 2019, OVER 28,000 PRESCRIBING APPROVALS HAD BEEN ISSUED TO PATIENTS, INVOLVING MORE THAN 1400 DOCTORS, MOSTLY GPS. MORE THAN 70,000 APPROVALS ARE PROJECTED BY THE END OF 2020: MOST PRESCRIPTIONS ARE FOR CHRONIC NON-CANCER PAIN, ANXIETY, CANCER-RELATED SYMPTOMS, EPILEPSY AND OTHER NEUROLOGICAL DISORDERS. HOWEVER, THE EVIDENCE SUPPORTING SOME INDICATIONS IS LIMITED: MANY DOCTORS ARE CAUTIOUS ABOUT PRESCRIBING CANNABIS. WHILE SERIOUS ADVERSE EVENTS ARE RARE, THERE ARE LEGITIMATE CONCERNS AROUND DRIVING, COGNITIVE IMPAIRMENT AND DRUG DEPENDENCE WITH PRODUCTS CONTAINING DELTA-9-TETRAHYDROCANNABINOL. CANNABIDIOL-ONLY PRODUCTS POSE FEWER RISKS:

Shortly after the enactment of restrictions aimed at limiting the spread of COVID-19, various local government and public health authorities around the world reported an increased sighting of rats. Such reports have yet to be empirically validated. Here we combined data from multi-catch rodent stations (providing data on rodent captures), rodent bait stations (providing data on rodent activity) and residents' complaints to explore the effects of a six week lockdown period on rodent populations within the City of Sydney, Australia. The sampling interval encompassed October 2019 to July 2020 with lockdown defined as the interval from April 1st to May 15th, 2020. Rodent captures and activity (visits to bait stations) were stable prior to lockdown. Captures showed a rapid increase and then decline during the lockdown, while rodent visits to bait stations declined throughout this period. There were no changes in the frequency of complaints during lockdown relative to before and after lockdown. There was a non-directional change in the geographical distribution of indices of rodent abundance suggesting that rodents redistributed in response to resource scarcity. We hypothesize that lockdown measures initially resulted in increased rodent captures due to sudden shortage of human-derived food resources. Rodent visits to bait stations might not show this pattern due to the nature of the binary data collected, namely the presence or absence of a visit. Relocation of bait stations driven by pest management goals may also have affected the detection of any directional spatial effect. We conclude that the onset of COVID-19 may have disrupted commensal rodent populations, with possible implications for the future management of these ubiquitous urban indicator species.

BACKGROUND: In 2016, the Australian federal government passed legislation enabling a range of cannabis-based products to be prescribed to patients by registered healthcare professionals. An online survey conducted immediately prior to these legislative changes found that the vast majority of respondents at the time were illicitly sourcing cannabis plant matter, smoking was the preferred route of administration and mental health, chronic pain, and sleep conditions were the most frequently cited reasons for medical cannabis use. This manuscript reports the results of a follow-up survey conducted in 2018–2019, the Cannabis As Medicine Survey (CAMS-18). The goal of this second questionnaire was to examine patterns of use and consumer perspectives regarding medical cannabis use in Australia, 2 years after the introduction of legal access pathways. METHODS: Anonymous online cross-sectional survey with convenience sample, recruited mainly through online media between September 2018 and March 2019. Participants were adults (18 years or over) residing in Australia who reported using a cannabis product for self-identified therapeutic reasons during the preceding 12 months. The survey measured consumer characteristics, indications and patterns of medical cannabis use, routes and frequency of administration, perceived benefits and harms, experiences and preferred models of access to medical cannabis. RESULTS: Data were available for 1388 respondents. The main categories of condition being treated with medical cannabis were pain (36.4%), mental health (32.8%), sleep (9.2%), neurological (5.2%) and cancer (3.8%). Respondents reported using medical cannabis on 15.8 (11.2) days in the past 28, by inhaled (71.4%) or oral (26.5%) routes and spending AUD$82.27 ($101.27) per week. There were high levels of self-reported effectiveness, but also high rates of side effects. There was uncertainty regarding the composition of illicit cannabinoid products and concerns regarding their possible contamination. Few respondents (2.7%) had ...