Medical consultants in the island are able to prescribe the medicinal use of cannabis in certain circumstances, it has been confirmed.

A consultation on the possible use of cannabis and hemp for medicinal purposes is due to be held in the new year.

Attorney General John Quinn told Tynwald last week that an update on the UK regulations governing the prescription of cannabis for medicinal purposes also applied to the Isle of Man.

He gave details of how different sets of regulations interacted with each other before telling members: ’A consultant would be able to prescribe a cannabis-based product for medicinal use in humans in a case where it is not an investigational medicinal product connected with a clinical trial.’

There were a number of conditions attached to that permission, however.

The product, which must have marketing authorisation, must be a ’special medicinal product, manufactured, assembled and supplied according to specific conditions’ which include that the consultant prescribes the product for a patient for whose treatment he or she is directly responsible to fulfil the special needs of that patient and that the ’product is for use under a prescription by a specialist medical practitioner’.

However the term ’special medicinal product’ would have to be shown to the apply to the island, given that it is contained within UK regulations that do not apply here.

Mr Quinn also remarked that some Isle of Man specific regulations might be worth updating for the sake of clarity.

He was replying to a question tabled by Dr Alex Allinson (Ramsey), who has advocated the legalisation of cannabis use. He has also suggested that the Isle of Man could be a centre for growing and exporting cannabis for medicinal purposes.

Meanwhile, Daphne Caine (Garff) asked Home Affairs Minister Bill Malarkey for an update on the planned review of evidence on the effectiveness of cannabis for medicinal use and decriminalising the use of small amounts of cannabis.

Mr Malarkey, who is chairman of the substance misuse steering group, said: ’The public health directorate, on behalf of the Substance Misuse Steering Group, undertook a review of the clinical effectiveness of medicinal cannabis, which informed the development of a consultation exercise on the future use of cannabis for medicinal purposes and also for industrial hemp, which is to be launched early in the New Year, hopefully.’

A separate consultation was due to be held on decriminalisation, but no date had been set.

He added: ’I have made it quite clear that I do not feel that police time should be wasted on small amounts of cannabis, so within the department we are looking at other ways of not decriminalising cannabis but stopping prosecuting for small amounts of cannabis, with maybe changes in legislation or fixed penalty notices that will actually stop youths being tarnished with a criminal record very early in life for small quantities.’

But he stressed that was separate from any consultation and subsequent action on decriminalisation.