{"title":"Children as voices and images for medicinal cannabis law reform.","authors":"Ian Freckelton Ao Qc","doi":"10.1007/s40592-021-00139-z","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>This article situates the movement for the legalisation of medicinal cannabis within the bigger picture of the impetus toward recreational cannabis legalisation. It describes the role played by children with epileptic syndromes in the medicinal cannabis law reform campaigns in the United Kingdom, and Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria in Australia. Noting the 'rule of rescue' and the prominence in media campaigns of children in Australian and English cases of parental disputation with clinicians about treatment for their children, it reviews whether paediatric epilepsy is a suitable test case for the legalisation of medicinal cannabis. Taking into account the vested commercial interests of Big Cannabis, the current medico-scientific knowledge of the efficacy of medicinal cannabis in controlling paediatric epileptic seizures, and issues of dignity, health privacy, and the enduring digital footprints of media coverage, the article commences discussion about the ethics of the media, parents, politicians and entrepreneurial doctors utilising parents' testimonials about the effects of medicinal cannabis as part of the cannabis law reform movement.</p>","PeriodicalId":43628,"journal":{"name":"Monash Bioethics Review","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.6000,"publicationDate":"2021-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8557259/pdf/","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Monash Bioethics Review","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s40592-021-00139-z","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"2021/10/31 0:00:00","PubModel":"Epub","JCR":"Q2","JCRName":"ETHICS","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
This article situates the movement for the legalisation of medicinal cannabis within the bigger picture of the impetus toward recreational cannabis legalisation. It describes the role played by children with epileptic syndromes in the medicinal cannabis law reform campaigns in the United Kingdom, and Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria in Australia. Noting the 'rule of rescue' and the prominence in media campaigns of children in Australian and English cases of parental disputation with clinicians about treatment for their children, it reviews whether paediatric epilepsy is a suitable test case for the legalisation of medicinal cannabis. Taking into account the vested commercial interests of Big Cannabis, the current medico-scientific knowledge of the efficacy of medicinal cannabis in controlling paediatric epileptic seizures, and issues of dignity, health privacy, and the enduring digital footprints of media coverage, the article commences discussion about the ethics of the media, parents, politicians and entrepreneurial doctors utilising parents' testimonials about the effects of medicinal cannabis as part of the cannabis law reform movement.
期刊介绍:
Monash Bioethics Review provides comprehensive coverage of traditional topics and emerging issues in bioethics. The Journal is especially concerned with empirically-informed philosophical bioethical analysis with policy relevance. Monash Bioethics Review also regularly publishes empirical studies providing explicit ethical analysis and/or with significant ethical or policy implications. Produced by the Monash University Centre for Human Bioethics since 1981 (originally as Bioethics News), Monash Bioethics Review is the oldest peer reviewed bioethics journal based in Australia–and one of the oldest bioethics journals in the world.
An international forum for empirically-informed philosophical bioethical analysis with policy relevance.
Includes empirical studies providing explicit ethical analysis and/or with significant ethical or policy implications.
One of the oldest bioethics journals, produced by a world-leading bioethics centre.
Publishes papers up to 13,000 words in length.
Unique New Feature: All Articles Open for Commentary