Medicine Man

It’s less than a year since cannabis was legalised for medical purposes, and investors haven’t let the grass grow beneath their feet. Australia already ranks among the countries with the highest number of recreational users.

- Alan Deans

It’s less than a year since cannabis was legalised for medical purposes, and investors haven’t let the grass grow beneath their feet. Australia already ranks among the countries with the highest number of recreational users. The history of cannabis cultivation here dates back to the First Fleet, when settlers brought along seeds to make hemp. Now the aptly named weed is at the centre of a growth industry aimed at treating many common ailments.

Let’s get one point straight. The marijuana that is smoked is not the same stuff that could soon ease itching from eczema, let insomniacs sleep or improve cancer treatments. The plants look similar but they have vastly different chemical make-up. Cannabis contains 113 types of a compound called cannabinoid. Just one of those, THC, brings a state of euphoria. Plants can be bred to have thousands of different concentrations and combinations of each compound, giving them the potential to treat many different ills. No one compound works alone. They all do, creating what is called an entourage effect. Now that it’s legal, the challenge is to test exactly which plants have which effects.

Harry Karelis is doing just that. Before the year is out, a company he chairs, Zelda Therapeutics, will start its first clinical trial in partnership with the University of Western Australia on formulations to treat insomnia. The university is a leader in sleep disorders, with its own sleep labs. “Picture a controlled environment where you have a relaxing night’s sleep with 24 leads attached to your brain, your lungs, your heart, your limbs and a camera monitoring your night’s sleep,” says Karelis. “We will be monitoring pretty much everything that is going on, including blood. This will be a randomised, crossover, placebo-controlled trial. That means the gold standard. If we show that our medicine works under those conditions, then it works.”