Challenges Around Medicinal Cannabis Education
17 April 2019
Former Associate Health Minister
Cautions Challenges Around Medicinal Cannabis Public and
Clinician Education
SETEK Therapeutics, a Taupo-based medical cannabis company has cautioned that public education and helping the medical profession to better understand medicinal cannabis will be a key challenge.
Chair of
the SETEK Advisory Board and former Associate Health
Minister Peter Dunne says there are significant challenges
surrounding attitudes and views towards cannabis-based
medicine from both the public and the medical
profession.
SETEK became the fourth company to receive
a licence from the Ministry of Health to cultivate cannabis
plants, and only the second to receive permission to grow
high THC cultivars for research in what is projected
globally to be an $11 billion medical cannabis industry by
2022.
Mr Dunne says: “There seems to be this public perception that cannabis-based medicines are the new panacea that will cure any health issues, this is not the case.”
“But cannabis-based medicines will be hugely beneficial for a number of medical conditions, including those suffering from intractable pain and spasticity disorders.
“Significant work will be required to help the medical profession better understand how medicinal cannabis products can benefit the treatment of their patients,” says Mr Dunne.
Mr Dunne took up his
position with the company in September 2018.
“I
joined SETEK because I was not only impressed with their
vision and plans to build a successful international
business, but also their genuine focus on helping people,”
says Mr Dunne.
SETEK was founded in 2018 by Taupo
businessman David Pearce and Mark Mees, with the aim of
becoming New Zealand’s leading cultivator and producer of
medical cannabis products.
SETEK Therapeutics is the only New Zealand company to preclude any involvement in the production of flower or loose leaf for smoking.
SETEK Chief Executive Mark Mees says the company fully supports the government’s Aotearoa New Zealand 2025 Smokefree goal, and in fact there are a number of healthier and more effective ways to consume medical cannabis.
The Government’s cannabis regulations are expected to be completed by the end of 2019, with associated licensing, audit and compliance functions completed by mid-2020 which Mr Mees says will signify the start of the cannabis market in New Zealand.
SETEK recently secured a 26-hectare
block of land in Taupo to establish its operational plant,
which is expected to create more than 100 jobs for the local
economy.
Mr Mees says SETEK has been methodical and
deliberate about its development and looking ahead three to
five years, it aims to have built a successful commercial
operation and established itself as one of the world’s
leading medical cannabis brands.
“This is a
complex, rapidly evolving new industry that doesn’t even
have a regulatory framework yet, but we have already seen
the failure of several New Zealand start-ups before
they’ve got out of the starting blocks,” he
says.
Mr Mees says SETEK aims to have its first
products on the market by the end of 2020.
“We have always been more concerned with doing it right than getting there first, as we aim to become New Zealand’s most trusted and lowest cost-provider of pharmaceutical-grade, 100% New Zealand-certified organic medical cannabis products,” says Mr Mees.
ENDS