New Frontiers: Trends and Issues with Medicinal Cannabis

This engaging webinar will feature legal and health perspectives on issues regarding medicinal cannabis.

Questions to be explored and discussed include:

• What is the evidence for the use of medicinal cannabinoids in mental disorders and chronic pain?
• What factors do we need to keep in mind when using medicinal cannabinoids for these conditions?
• What are the current barriers to access to medicinal cannabis?
• How will decriminalisation effect medicinal cannabis?
• Is there still room for an illicit market?
• Is the medicalisation of cannabis a precursor for other previously illicit drugs?

David Heilpern was appointed as a Magistrate in 1998, and was at the time the youngest magistrate in Australia. He ‘retired’ in May 2020. He sat in the criminal, mining, family, industrial, coronial and children’s jurisdictions of the Local Court, and was the Senior Civil Magistrate for five years. During his time on the bench, David was the principal educator for new magistrates throughout Australia and the Pacific and made several important reported decisions on criminal, environmental and evidence law. Prior to his appointment, David was a litigation lawyer on the North Coast where he co-founded the law school at Southern Cross University in 1992. David maintained a litigation practice throughout this time, representing a wide range of defendants including high profile clients North East Forrest Alliance and Nimbin Hemp. During this time David graduated with a Masters in Law from SCU and was pronounced the Alumni of the Decade for the University in 2005. David has authored or co-authored four published books, refereed journal articles on a range of legal and judicial topics, and is a prize-winning short story writer and poet. He regularly speaks at practical law conferences in Australia and internationally on advocacy, criminal law and courtcraft. In August 2022, David was appointed as a Dean and Head of Discipline (Law) at SCU and his writing and research is now focussed on judicial education, drug law reform, aboriginal overrepresentation in the criminal justice system and environmental activism.

Gabrielle Campbell (PhD; MCrim) is a Senior Research Fellow at the School of Psychology, and National Centre for Youth Substance Use Research, University Queensland and Adjunct senior Lecturer and the National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre. Gabrielle is currently the research manager for the NHMRC Centre of Research Excellence on Meaningful Outcomes in Substance Use Treatment, led by Professor Leanne Hides. CI Campbell is a previous Australian Public Health Early Career Research Fellowship recipient (2017-2021, #1119992) at the National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre, University of New South Wales. From 2012, she established and coordinated the Pain and Opioids IN Treatment prospective cohort study; world-first study examining the benefits and outcomes of pharmaceutical opioids for chronic non-cancer pain (CNCP). From 2017-2020 CI Campbell co-led systematic reviews to examine the evidence of cannabinoids for chronic non-cancer pain and mental disorders to assist the Therapeutics Goods Administrations in the development of guidance documents on the use of medicinal cannabinoids.

Please click here for further information or to register.