The death of a man with mental health issues who took his life after cannabis was prescribed by a Melbourne company has thrown a spotlight on a booming industry.
Long after Dominic McCabe died, the packages kept coming. Month after month, as his family grieved his suicide, the small tubs in plain packaging would keep arriving at his house.
His case has thrown a spotlight on the booming but little-policed cannabis industry now being accessed by hundreds of thousands of Australians – the vast majority of whom see a doctor or nurse only via telehealth. Dispensed is majority-owned by Melbourne pharmacist Adam Riad Younes, who runs two Priceline chemists in suburban Melbourne.
It has since grown into a scheme used by hundreds of thousands of people to access cannabis legally with a doctor’s script. Dispensed’s website describes itself as “incredibly affordable with $0 in set-up and upfront fees”. To get cannabis delivered, patients fill out an online form and then do a telehealth consultation, after which the drug is delivered.
In August, the Pharmacy Board of Australia imposed conditions on Younes blocking him personally from selling cannabis. The same month, the Medical Board of Australia suspended two doctors – Geon Oh and Ji Woong Yoo – over their work as prescribing doctors for Dispensed. Neither Yoo nor Oh could be reached for comment, and it is not known whether either doctor intends to challenge the suspension.Younes did not respond to requests for comment.
Ann McCabe said while the medicinal cannabis industry needed attention, more widely, there was nowhere near enough mental health support for people like her son. “The whole mental health system is stuffed. There are nowhere near enough people in the industry.”John Ryan, chief executive of public health and drug research centre Penington Institute, said there were potential harms and benefits from medicinal cannabis that needed to be balanced.
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