Children who suffer from severe epilepsy will be permitted to try a drug devised from cannabis under a new scheme approved by the NSW government.
The Herald reports on Premier Mike Baird’s $3.5 million partnership with British-based GW Pharmaceuticals, who will supply the drug to children who suffer seizures.
Mr Baird said the agreement was an “historic day for the state and for the hundreds of families across NSW who live with the debilitating effects of drug-resistant epilepsy.”
“It’s a day that I know has given hope to many of these families … if we can bring relief to these poor children, who wouldn’t want to do that?” Mr Baird said, while visiting patients at the Randwick Children’s Hospital.
Compassionate access to medicinal cannabis Epidiolex, which has shown positive results in epilepsy trials in the United States, will be available from early 2016.
A second cannabis-derived drug, CBDV, will for the first time be trialled on epileptic children.
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