Victoria becomes first Australian state to legalize medicinal cannabis

Victoria has become the first Australian state to legalize medicinal cannabis, after passing an historic bill in parliament overnight.

The legislation, the Access to Medicinal Cannabis 2015 bill, will make the drug available to epileptic children as early as 2017, before allowing access to those in palliative care and HIV sufferers.

"We're starting with these children with severe epilepsy, whose lives have been shown to improve so significantly, because we know these children often don't make it until adulthood," Victoria's Health Minister Jill Hennessy said late on Tuesday night.

"We want to improve the quality of their life."

Despite its well-known "recreational" qualities, cannabis is also used clinically in the U.S. to treat nausea for undergoing chemotherapy, chronic pain, multiple sclerosis, epilepsy and other neurological conditions.

Previously, Australian parents of children with epilepsy have been forced to break the law by acquiring the black-market versions of the drug for treatment purposes.

"I just think that in this day and age, it's unfair and unacceptable to ask a parent to make a decision between obeying the law and acting in the best interests of their child," Hennessy said.

"Those parents will no longer have that dilemma."

As well as legalizing access to marijuana in exceptional circumstances, the new law will also lead to the creation of a network to manufacture a safe version of the drug.

Under Australia's Special Access Scheme, doctors can currently apply to the Therapeutic Goods Authority (TGA) to import unlicensed treatments such as cannabinoid oils for patients.

But many international cannabis-based treatments don't meet the TGA's production standards.

The Victorian government plans to set up the Office of Medicinal Cannabis to oversee the manufacturing process and the drug's clinical administration through doctors.

Hennessy said the cannabis would be produced in a number of forms, including tinctures, oils, capsules, sprays and vaporizable liquids.

A small-scale cannabis cultivation trail will get underway at a Victorian research center in the coming months.

New South Wales has already conducted three trials for medicinal cannabis, while Queensland is planning its own testing at Brisbane's Lady Cilento Children's Hospital at some point in 2016. Endit