The Circle of Care: The Pharmacist and Legalized Cannabis
May 7, 2018
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In an effort to present as many perspectives as possible about the impact of legal cannabis on the profession of dentistry, I have invited Dr. Shelita Dattani, Director of Practice Development and Knowledge Translation at the Canadian Pharmacists Association. Dr. Dattani spoke about the role of the pharmacist in the cannabis conversation. I hope you find the interview informative and interesting. As usual, we welcome your feedback, questions, and suggestions at oasisdiscussions@cda-adc.ca Until next time! Chiraz Guessaier, CDA oasis Manager |
Highlights
- Currently, patients can access medical cannabis through the medical stream, using an authorization from a physician. Cannabis is then distributed through one of Health Canada’s licensed producer. Once cannabis becomes legal, a recreational stream is added to the equation.
- Pharmacists being the most accessible healthcare professionals, are often asked questions from patients or health care providers/prescribers about cannabis; however, they are currently not involved in dispensing cannabis as medically authorized.
- Pharmacists want to ensure that patients who are using this medication as a therapeutic exercise have clinical oversight from both their physician and their pharmacist. There would also be benefit if the federal government makes changes to some of the legislation to allow pharmacists to have cannabis in pharmacies, so they can have that informed conversations with patients about cannabis and other drugs they may be taking.
- Pharmacists also recommend there should be an insured and continued distinction between both the recreational and medical streams of cannabis and that further research should go into medical cannabis.
Full Interview (5.54″)
Thank you for this! I’d love to see more!