For more information on the COMPASS Program:

www.cannabiswarehouse.com.au/compass

www.ausmca.org

TRANSCRIPT

Kel: I'm Kel Myers and this is Phoenix Sound.

My guest today is Eric Chan, COO of Cannabis Warehouse, an end to end logistics business aiming to bring Australia's gold standard medical cannabis system to the world.

Eric has also played a crucial role in launching COMPASS, Australia's first centralised Compassionate access program, with the goal of making medical cannabis accessible and affordable to everyone eligible for it.

In our conversation, we explore what inspired the creation of the COMPASS Program and how it all works, the power of industry collaboration and putting our minds together to create something bigger than ourselves, and what the future of the medical cannabis space looks like, both in Australia and throughout the world.

Stay with us.

Welcome to Phoenix Sound. It's a real pleasure to have you here today.

I mean on this podcast, we explore ideas, that challenge the status quo around endometriosis. And one promising alternative to conventional treatment that we're seeing emerging more and more is medicinal cannabis which has been getting a lot of attention lately from all angles for its potential to provide meaningful relief.

And the problem is, medicinal cannabis isn't cheap and the high cost I guess, of access is locking many people out of experiencing its therapeutic benefits.

Now, the COMPASS program, which you founded is seeking to address this inequity and is now doing that in a very tangible way.

So I'd really love to start there, Eric, with what inspired the creation of the COMPASS program and how did this transformation come about for you?

Eric Chan: I really appreciate you having me on Kel to speak about the Compassionate Access Scheme. And you're absolutely right.

Medicinal cannabis is a wonderful medicine, but can be extremely costly.

And I would love to claim all the credit for founding the COMPASS Scheme. But in reality, the story of the COMPASS Scheme starts with AMCA, the Australian Medicinal Cannabis Association.

Have you heard of AMCA before?

Kel: I've heard of AMCA, but for people listening who might not have, I think it's worth, yeah, maybe explaining what that is. That'd be helpful.

Eric Chan: Yeah, absolutely. So, AMCA is like I said, the Australian Medicinal Cannabis Association, and it's one of the first associations representing medicinal cannabis in Australia since legalisation.

 And it's history is really tied into the birth of the medical framework because Lucy Haslam and her story with her son suffering, you know, severe illness, severe a palliative and terminal illness, required medicinal cannabis to alleviate some of the suffering that he was experiencing. And none of the other medications were working well.

And it was medicinal cannabis that helped him. And they had to get it obviously illegally and through these back-end channels, which spurred Lucy to go to the government and campaign for the medicinal framework. And it is because of her and her works and obviously the collaboration with all the people along the way that medicinal cannabis as a medical framework exists in Australia.

So we have a lot to thank Lucy and AMCA for, and on that particular train of collaboration, as well as doing for the greater good, they saw the need for a centralised Compassionate access scheme, because right now in the medicinal cannabis industry, there was for a while only a Compassionate access scheme accessible via the brands themselves, but nothing centralised.

So you can imagine as a patient, if you've got multiple products in your treatment plan and you needed financial assistance, you'd have to go and plead your case to each and every brand. Ask them for help, and they come back to you with varying degrees of help, which is exactly what we saw with patients.

Some got one bottle free, some got, you know, X percentage off for a limited amount of time. Some got only you know, support over a six month period, but then had it cut off, which in some ways is setting them up for failure. I'm sure we've all, you know, seen and know people who are in similar situations like this.

And so the centralised aspect of the Compassionate access scheme was the idea that AMCA wanted to push forward. And unfortunately, while this idea was trying to be brought into fruition, the concept and the strategy was to look to the government for help and we know how challenging that can be right. And to be fair, though, that the health minister's office Before the changeover, I think it was can't even remember his name, Greg Hunt or something like that.

He was very open to the idea and very open to medicinal cannabis and was willing to entertain funding the centralised Compassionate access scheme. However, once the changeover to the new minister, maybe because of post COVID, maybe because of, you know, the economic climate. They decided to table even reviewing the proposal and it was at last year's United in Compassion Conference where the AMCA board members announced that rejection and the tabling of the proposal that I was sitting in the audience thinking to myself, Hmm, this problem doesn't seem too hard to solve because as a distributor, which is what my company Cannabis Warehouse does, we distribute medicinal cannabis to pharmacies.

We thought that this should be an easy problem to solve because we already handle the Compassionate access schemes for the individual brands. But if we put our minds together and just think of a good process and perhaps some good digital infrastructure to handle this centralisation aspect, we could make this come to life.

And lo and behold, in November slash December of 2023, we came up with the idea, put it to the AMCA board, got the doctors involved that's part of the clinic Cannabis Clinicians Australia, which is a subgroup of AMCA, and we were able to run a pilot program for six months.

Kel: Absolutely incredible. I just love your can do attitude, Eric.

And I know that you said, Oh, yeah, it's kind of no big deal to put it together. But I think it actually is. I think it's a it's a big undertaking, and it requires a lot of enthusiasm, a lot of focus, like you say, a lot of collaboration. And, you know, it's it's a testament to everyone's effort and to your leadership, really, to galvanize something as powerful as this.

You know, which kind of brings me to the next question because when we talked on the phone for the first time, you shared how someone had rung up asking if the COMPASS program was actually a myth, which is kind of sad in a way, isn't it? That that we don't, think that these things are possible, and that's yeah, that's, that's maybe a conversation for another day.

But, but you know, the cannabis industry, as we know, has been plagued with a lot of misinformation. It can make it very difficult for patients to find trustworthy sources of guidance, and I'm wondering what your thoughts are on that and someone who's so heavily involved in the space of why you think it's so challenging to get like clear Accurate messaging across and what advice would you give to someone who's like skeptical about Med can?

Maybe they're on the fence But then they read an article and then they get scared or they just don't really know how to navigate safely through the process It's a couple of questions ever. I'm really interested to hear your take on that

Eric Chan: Yeah, absolutely. So on the first point about the patients ringing up our business line, and please remember, we're distributors, so we don't normally deal with patients, but they had heard about the COMPASS Program, and that was one of those key moments where that patient asked exactly that question.

I heard on the grapevine that this is a Compassionate access scheme. Is it a myth? And you are absolutely right. It really gobsmacked our team that we are in this space where it's so challenging to find this level of support, especially again, because this medication is an unapproved therapeutic good, therefore is not part of the PBS scheme.

And though it helps many people, it is a treatment that requires usually, you know, two or three products from an oil from CBD to a flower to a vape cart, like something like that, that matches their needs, which sometimes can go into, you know, the hundreds of dollars.

And so it's just another marker for us to really signify that we're doing the right thing here. And we made the program really easy because coming out of pilot, since we launched we went from 60 patients being served during pilot to now over 150 patients in the last two and a half, three months.

Kel: Wow.

Eric Chan: Yeah, it's amazing, right?

And we went from eight brands contributing and producers contributing to the pool of medication to now 14 or 15. And this just, again, signifies that regardless of all the stigma and all the challenges that we've heard about medicinal cannabis and the business around cannabis and the business in general around healthcare, which can cause a lot of these issues which probably leads into your next question, but just the business of cannabis is one thing we all know that business is required to move industries forward. They have to be self sustaining. They have to be able to generate money. And in other words, it's own life force in order to keep moving and growing.

We all sort of understand that, but I think what people forget is that in healthcare, there is a measure of moral and ethical requirements.

That it's not just plain straight business and the COMPASS program looks to address that because we keep the submissions and the approvals of cases within the health care professional hands like the way that it works is that the patient's doctor actually submits a case to the COMPASS program where a panel of their peers.

Nurse pracs and doctors will review the case, and if it gets approved, they get their treatment taken care of for six month blocks at a time. And fortunately, because we've had so much contribution, we know that we definitely can help patients for much longer than six months. This is just something that we're thinking about a pilot, but I'm happy to report that we could probably go for a year and a half, two years even if we receive no more donations and no more support from pharmacies.

And so that aspect of coming together and bringing forth a reminder that there is the moral and ethical aspect of healthcare is why, you know, it's so important to have what we have here.

And so when you ask the question, why is there so many issues and challenges around the stigma and the acceptance of medicinal cannabis?

Is that there is that part where cannabis has been steeped in our popular culture for a very long time.

It has had the challenges with being a medication that also induces euphoria. And when you have euphoria or pleasure or dopamine or whatever angle you want to go from, it is open to abuse. And that is the reality and the fact of it.

And coming from somebody who loved cannabis, you know, in, in my uni days from a recreational lens and only in, you know, my late twenties to thirties, as I started to learn more about the medical lens and understanding why I used it, I can appreciate that culture and I can appreciate that where that comes from.

But I think even the people who love it recreationally, they all have stories of friends who've used too much, who've greened out, who, you know, had challenges and issues with cannabis. And I think that is a reminder that we need to come to a medicinal cannabis from a much more balanced point of view.

Kel: Yeah. Yeah. And like you said, that moral and ethical requirement and keeping like the Hippocratic oath at the centre of everything of 'do no harm'.

It's clear that the cannabis industry does that at all times.

And it's kind of sad that there's so much mythology. And like you said, it's steeped in pop culture the whole like You know, just the stoner, the college stoner.

We've all been that person, anyone that went to uni and was on a campus. We've all been that person. But in terms of, of that versus medicinal cannabis, it's like night and day. So yeah, it's it's really interesting.

Eric Chan: I think I'm hitting on that point there about, you know, it being night and day to, to look at why it is night and day is because a patient to get through safely and find their way through the process of medicinal cannabis is to understand that there is a misnomer around what cannabis in the pop culture is, you know, marijuana, you know, weed, which usually focuses on high THC products. And what medicinal cannabis is, which is this plethora of minor cannabinoids that are non psychoactive.

They're completely non psychoactive, they're completely separated and divorced from what people normally know of cannabis and has all these really strong medicinal properties and in fact our industry started because of CBD and usually the video that probably a lot of people have seen of the child being given CBD after suffering seizures constantly and having a small dose of CBD and all of a sudden, you know, the seizures start to reduce like I'm sure many people have seen that video clip before. It all started from the other minor cannabinoids as well.

And I think the only way that we can navigate through this conversation through this industry through medicinal cannabis as patients versus recreational is to understand that cannabis is so much more than what the pop culture gives, is so much more than THC products and THC plays a huge role in the benefits of medicinal cannabis and medicine in general, but it's not only that.

And I think that's where the stigma lays is separating those two things with the regular community.

Kel: Yeah, absolutely. And talking of community, I saw a proverb the other day, which pops up a lot and it's something I really love an African proverb that reads, 'if you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.' And I was instantly thinking about people in the cannabis space and I was thinking ahead of our conversation and it just really encapsulates that this is more than an industrial sector as you as you stated, it's a loyal and dedicated community of, of people, and I'm wondering how important that's been.

It's clear for me story that it's been very important to, you know, galvanize people and bring them together. But as everyone continues to grow, and this is strength in numbers, how do you see the space evolving over the next five years as a community?

Eric Chan: That's a really good question.

I actually had to think really deeply about this one to understand where the, I guess, key point would be that will be the difference that makes the difference, right?

Because community or industries come together by definition, have community growth within itself. That's what an industry is.

It's a coming together of people who exist along, say, for example, the supply chain or the medical healthcare field, and they need to come together for an industry to actually exist. But where I think my thoughts landed on is that we need to have a shared community values, vision, mission, and ethos. I think that's not discussed enough.

I think the starting point for the industry side has always been one from purely business and from the healthcare side, it has been one from purely we need to treat it like every other pharmaceutical that we've ever known because that's safe and secure and provides a certainty. But this new plant, this new medicine, this agricultural medicine, this botanical medicine is so different from what we've ever experienced before it's not one single compound that we isolate, produce in a lab and put into a tablet. It's not that at all. And the business around it, like we shared before has a moral and ethical aspect and more so than ever, because it's not so simple. Because it has this complexity and it has this level of innovation and newness that we really need to band together and find each other that the right people within the community, whether you're speaking about health care or you're speaking about industry.

From supply chain to producer to anyone along the space. We need to be talking about what is the goal that we're heading towards. And if the goal that we're heading towards truly is to support patients to truly do the right thing so that we do not end up on the wrong side of history. I'm sure everyone here has seen dope sick or pain hustlers about the opioid epidemic.

And a lot of people. Do you throw up their arms about how, you know, we can't advertise. And I agree, there's a level of strictness where you can't even say medicinal cannabis and makes it harder for people to find it and almost treats medicinal cannabis, like Voldemort's name, right? From how that makes it even harder, but on the other side of the coin from the community aspect, I can understand that as well, because if anyone looked at the opioid crisis or perhaps on the nicotine vaping crisis, if you've watched big vape on Netflix.

When I was at uni, like 10, 15 years ago nicotine vaping was there, you know, I saw lots of students with a big giant mods blowing out big plume clouds, but it never made any impact at all.

But if you watch the big vape, documentary on Juul when they tied nicotine vaping with lifestyle and branding and youth culture. That sort of advertising really changed the the game in terms of how nicotine vaping cemented itself in the community and unfortunately with young teens and above, right?

So you can see from these examples is we're trying to learn From these past experiences and applied them where we can on a large scale, and we all need to have empathy for that and understand where the regulators coming from.

And so when you talk about all these multifaceted areas that are part of the community aspect in making this successful, we need to come together, share a right vision, have those right discussions, have good discussions between not only the patients and the And the medicines and the healthcare professional, but also with the regulators and the government and had that, you know, real true collaborative feel so that we can all head towards the same thing.

Kel: Yeah. Yeah. I think the key word there is, is empathy. I reckon it's clear that you've got really strong empathy skills, the ability to see things from different people's perspectives. perspectives to understand the historical context and why people feel the fear that they do. It's like fear doesn't come from nowhere.

It's primal, and it can be intergenerational if there's certain narratives that have been passed down. We know that, and that obviously shapes culture in different ways. And it's clear that, and understandably, there's a They want to get away, the system, if you will, the government want to get away from this whole like cliche of the stoner and I'm with that, to be honest, I think that that's, that's the future of the industry needs to be a lot more pragmatic.

I think we need, we need more nuanced education around how we discuss medicinal cannabis. And like you said, it's so complex that it isn't as simple as like indica, Sativa, we can't afford to be that binary about it and hopefully the more research that gets done, the more that we can have that that kind of like textured conversation.

I'm wondering what you think the trends are that are going to shape the future of the industry when it comes to access for everyday patients. I just put an asterisk here, and you can fact check me if I'm wrong here, Eric, but it says that in 2020, the Australian medicinal cannabis market was valued at around 100 million dollars, so that's Aussie dollars and that's projected to double by the end of 2024.

I'm not sure. The specifics, but yeah, it's quite, quite rapid market growth and patient access expanding the way it is. Things are looking bright, right?

Eric Chan: Yeah, I do. I do still have a very optimistic outlook on medicinal cannabis, despite at the time of this recording in late October of 2024, we've had a recent run of bad press.

Yeah, about medicinal cannabis and various, you know, incidences happening with a gentleman who committed suicide to the stories on a current affair about kickbacks and things like that. Right.

And one of the things that I have to sort of keep in mind as someone within the industry is to remember that as all things, they had their life cycles and with medicinal cannabis being so new, it's going through that life cycle where there is desire and want from the community to have this medicine, and that is not only evidenced by the level of growth, but also about the conversations and also by the mere fact that globally, even in countries that you would not expect to have medicinal cannabis, such as a country like Pakistan, right?

One of my colleagues is from Pakistan that is predominantly a very conservative country. With the Islamic faith, which has a very strong outlook on drugs of any kind, medicines included. They have legalised medicinal cannabis, especially for research and so on. So you can tell that there is a global trend that understands this plant that's been around for so long and the benefits it can have.

But in terms of the future of where the industry is going for Australia is that right now I feel like there's going to be a little bit of a purge because without the proper regulation and the consequences being in the forefront in the minds of those who wish to be bad faith actors and damage this industry from, you know, doctors and clinics that take kickbacks to those who are doing nefarious things with their business models and things like that, we need to go through a little bit of purge and perhaps we'll see a slowdown in the industry.

However, it's growth is probably inevitable. It's movement away from simply harm reduction and converting perhaps a lot of the people who are utilising in the black market to the legitimate market, to have them understand that perhaps their use, which was thought to be recreational may have a medicinal aspect part of it as a part of it that they may be using and be self medicating for a reason.

I was one of those patients who realised that. And when I came to that realisation, it actually reduced my cannabis usage to, to only when I need it. It really changed my mindset. These little things that I'm talking about here. Part of the journey of where I think the future of medicinal cannabis needs to head to towards because once the regulators and the government and the community feel comfortable that the industry has a level of self regulation, is heading towards the right sort of mission and ethos and vision that we do understand that there is a moral aspect to health care and that we are counterbalancing the harms that potentially can be created and demonstrate that to the community and to the government. I think that medicinal cannabis will start to flowerish and perhaps that in the end looks like a separation of say THC products or THC as the cannabinoid going down sort of more the adult use and regulated under a different framework. Versus the minor cannabinoids, which currently in the framework, minor cannabinoids are treated like THC and are moved into schedule eight, which is one of the highest scheduling, you know, on par with cocaine, et cetera, right?

So perhaps the separation of THC would reduce the the minor cannabinoids into what they call schedule 4 what you're most familiar with, which is, you know, standard script medicines like antibiotics and all that. And then because there's less restriction around it, industry will look to invest more money because it's easier to deal with and it'll be easier for it to flowerish and grow and have research done on it and be integrated with the community and make healthcare professionals like doctors and pharmacists feel comfortable in handling it because there is a Big difference between handling schedule four medicines and schedule eight medicines.

These things that I'm talking about here, hopefully will be in my belief little milestones and flags that will signify the progress of the cannabis industry. And then of course, you know, to, to tap that off would be something like, you know, the driving laws changing and things like that.

Kel: Yeah. Fingers crossed that things will move forward there. Just bringing it back to COMPASS. You said at the start that you'd finished the pilot. Things are expanding already. And you also talked about, shared vision and goals. And I'm thinking, you know, it's clear that you're a leader in this space, Eric.

So what's your vision that you'd like to galvanise people around for, like, Both national and international cannabis access, like you said, Pakistan making that move, you know, which is a bold move, as you say, in a, in a conservative society. So what's, what's your vision? I'd love to hear it.

Eric Chan: Well, I think that COMPASS was one of those things where we wanted to demonstrate that there is something really positive that can come of proper collaboration between all stakeholders within the industry. And it has become like that.

And as a result of designing a program like this, where say, for example, the submission and the review, the approval process is a peer to peer, and it removes, for example, the communication relationship between a brand and a patient, which obviously can cause lots of conflicts of interest.

This inspired the thoughts around creating a proper framework around medicinal cannabis and how we can evolve it and therefore become world leaders. Australia could become world leaders in designing the perfect medicinal cannabis framework.

And I think that is sort of the vision that we have here and why our team at Cannabis Warehouse do what we do is that we always saw the opportunity as not only just bringing this medicine that we knew from the get go would be highly positive for patients and for the people in general, but also seeing the opportunity for Australia to be a world leader in this space and bring it to the world.

Something that we can all be proud of because like I said before, we could end up on the wrong side of history. And be on a dope sick pain hustler type of docuseries.

Or we could end up on the right side of history and be remembered as the country, as the people that created something that spread this really positive and amazing plants and medicine to the world.

And I think case in point is that we always talk about, you know, quality cannabis coming from Canada because they legalised cannabis for what? 20 years now, right?

But one of the things that you'll see in Canada now, they're only just starting to talk again about the minor cannabinoids to talk about the medicine, the medicinal framework.

And we've been talking about that for years now in Australia, despite being so far behind in our knowledge around the cannabis plants. But in terms of the medicines, in terms of the frameworks, in terms of the policies that we could create. We could be world leaders in this space along with, you know, some of the European countries as well.

And so this is the vision that I have for Australia and us as an industry, because if we can do this well and stand by it and have something to be proud of, it could be something, like you said, that galvanises us all together and the community and the regulators together to move this forward in the best way possible.

Kel: Yeah, yeah, that's a really helpful outlook Eric. It's exciting to think that that's possible and, you know, even just from an agricultural standpoint, we've got such diverse land here, you know, coming from the UK are still in awe of the fact that we can grow like potatoes and bananas. In the same country.

 There's so many different actual environments within Australia as a landmass. It's yeah, there's so much potential for excellence and to be up there with Canada and like European countries and even be ahead of them and be a leader of them.

Eric Chan: And you just hit a really good point there is that the emerging Australian cannabis growers and manufacturers, those are just starting to really show themselves right now because of the investments made a couple of years ago.

So like you said, with this diversity and this amazing land, perhaps Australia also can produce some of the best cannabis in the world.

Some very unique cannabis, maybe best, best than perfect. I think maybe these words are the wrong words to use, right? Because I think every country can contribute to this space and bring their own unique spin to it.

So yeah, you're absolutely right. There's, there's that possibility of what Australia can do with the plant itself.

Kel: They're actually running a course at Federation Uni, which is here in Ballarat on how to, to grow it. It's a Cert V and it's, it's a particular course and it's only FedUni that are doing it.

And I think people are going to be learning about an hour north of Ballarat. About how to, how to grow it, which is brilliant to see that pipeline of people getting involved in that side of the space in the growing space. So, yeah.

Eric Chan: A good start, right?

Kel: Yeah, right, yeah. There's so many good things happening.

There really are.

And yeah, just, just going back to the bad press, not to touch on it too much, but I think, yeah, it's important just to kind of like ride the wave and know that this is just the way it goes when it comes to innovation and that kind of part of the bell curve, there's always going to be resistance and turbulence and not to get too caught up in you In what's being printed at Fairfax Media, maybe.

So yeah, yeah.

As the conversation comes to a close, I'm really curious to hear like your thoughts on this, Eric.

What are three things you wish that everyone knew about medicinal cannabis? Like three things that people can just take away in their mind and mull over. I'd love to know.

Eric Chan: Yeah.

So first off, I think I want to reiterate that point that I made before that medicinal cannabis is not just the pop culture of cannabis, and it's not just THC.

That medicinal cannabis has all these minor cannabinoids and volatiles and terpenes and all these things that make up the medicinal properties, the healing properties.

And if everyone can separate those two things in their mind, then I think we'll be able to move forward from the stigma of cannabis. So that definitely would be one of them.

The second thing that I would say would be a key takeaway is that please know that the success of the medicinal cannabis industry and its space within the government and regulatory framework is actually in the hands of the people, and I think people forget that.

Where you choose to take your lack of a better word, "business" or your treatment, if you just decide to go for those easy telehealth clinics that do two minute consults that are just script meals, you are adding to the fuel of restricting the growth of medicinal cannabis and actually inhibiting the the ability for our industry to head towards where I'm sure these people want anyway, which is proper adult use and freedom to do so and fairness amongst the driving laws.

It's in the choices of the people and where they decide to take their health care is what is actually determining how fast this industry grows.

I should say is a key pillar to determining where they grow.

Because if we keep feeding these particular, you know, telehealth clinics, fast clinics, these clinics that have, you know, huge conflicts of interest that don't really take your health into consideration by not sharing with you that the products that they prescribe to you are actually products that they own.

So that huge conflict of interest in health care is not meant to exist for a really, really good and obvious reason, right? No one here.

You know what the funny joke is that I asked? Like even those doctors who engage in, you know, kickbacks and, and all of that, if you ask them, would you want your doctor, your healthcare professional to have such a large conflict of interest where they're only choosing the medicine for you, even the particular type of medicine, even in the brand of medicine, even if it's the right medicine for you, because they get some sort of monetary remuneration from it, would you be happy to engage with that healthcare professional?

And even those healthcare professionals would say no, because no one wants that.

So it's a really big reminder that where we head towards has always and will always be in the hands of the people.

That that's a second thing that I would want.

And then I guess the third thing is I would like to share with those who are listening who use medicinal cannabis, probably one part recreationally, but also understand that it benefits them on a medical side, perhaps it helps alleviate pain because they're a tradie and working all day or they have sleep issues.

I would like for everyone to think about exploring beyond just high THC products.

That even though the psychoactive properties of THC give what feels like the most you know, alleviation from whatever elements you have, that sometimes you really just don't know what you don't know, or you haven't experienced yet.

And I've met so many people, even for pain, you said, Oh, but I need that high THC product or I need a lot of flower that as soon as they try like a balanced flower, right? With a lot of CBD in it or other minor cannabinoids like CBG, CBN, all these other things available. As soon as they're willing to give it a go, they found that their symptoms start to alleviate quicker that they were using less, that their cost per month was reduced.

And I've heard that story time and time and time again.

But the ability to get over that initial hump of trying something that may not have that instantaneous hit that they're used to is, is something that has been the biggest challenge for those of us who have been campaigning and championing the medical model.

So I would love for everyone to perhaps take that on board and give those other things a try and a go.

Kel: Yeah, and I think that's a testament as well, that, that last point around it's what they're used to. I think that really is a testament to how different the medicinal cannabis space is from conventional medicine, conventional pills, like say opioids, is that, there's that expectation of like a quick hit, a quick relief, you know, if you go into hospital, some women need to be hospitalized for endometriosis pain. Thankfully, I never have, but my partner has. And you know, they'll hook you up to fentanyl in there. You know, I can't imagine that's like, you know, a slow, a slow burn. I'd imagine it's pretty, pretty rapid onset.

So it's like, I think that kind of proves the point of how innovative and how singular this space is in comparison to traditional big pharma, as well as the expectations of the medicine. You know, as someone that takes CBD oil, yeah, it's a completely different experience to, to like vaping a THC product and for good reason.

Eric Chan: It also makes a lot of sense, right Kel? Because if you think about anything else that exists in our life, whether it be vitamins, right, where you could take medication for depression. But if you address your vitamin D. Deficiency and taking vitamin D tablets do not give you an instantaneous relief.

But over time, everyone knows that that helps as well because we have, you know, seasonal depression. We have people who've demonstrated over and over again that vitamin D deficiency can cause these psychological symptoms. We know the aspect of physical training, that lifting the weights or running, that one run is not going to help you, but over time you see how it impacts every other area of your life.

This idea of long term slow investment or medium term investment versus instantaneous quick hits and wins, that that dichotomy has existed in every area in our life. And it also exists in medicinal cannabis medication as well.

Kel: Yeah, yeah. And shifting the expectations is so important. Thanks for sharing those insights, Eric.

There's a lot of, a lot of wisdom, a lot of depth, a lot of things to unpack. And I hope that people can really reflect on such an enlightening conversation about COMPASS and about hope and coming together and collaborating and for anyone looking to learn more about the COMPASS program, what would be the next step on the journey for them, Eric?

Eric Chan: Yeah, absolutely. I would love to actually just close by sharing how easy it is to get involved with COMPASS and to where to direct you know, your search right?

So obviously with COMPASS, you can go to The Australian Medicinal Cannabis Association and they will have a link to COMPASS and it shares with you, you know, how it works and, and all that information, but essentially it really is as simple as this because we deliberately made it this simple. If you speak to your doctor who is authorised to prescribe medicinal cannabis and ask them to go to cannabiswarehouse.com.au, they can sign up under a practitioner login, and it's all behind a firewall.

We do need to get their our process all legitimate.

Then they would have access to our portal and all the education information on how the system works and what products are available, what medicines are available to be given to a particular patient. And for a patient it really is as simple as that, because as soon as the practitioner is involved and signed up to our portal, they will be able to make a submission and the submission is simply identifying what is the clinical picture of the patient and what is the financial hardship situation.

In terms of the criteria, we made it very simple as well.

We want patients who are already stabilised on medicinal cannabis, meaning that they're already familiar with what treatment works.

If they still need to see if medicinal cannabis works in any way, shape or form, that might not necessarily be the best candidate for it because after all, it is a limited resource.

However like I said, in since we've gone out of pilot, we've had a lot of collaboration and contributions, so perhaps that will change. But for now, the criterion is to have people who are comfortable with medicinal cannabis as a treatment outcome already.

And then finally, the other criteria is simply the three tiers that we have available, which is Tier One: this is for the most severely hit in terms of financial hardship, and those with the most severe medical conditions like cancer, palliative, Parkinson's, you know, all that sort of thing.

They would get all of their medication and treatment and dispensing for free. It's complete altruism on the part of the industry.

On Tier Two, the medication is free as well.

But the patient will need to pay for the courier fee because that is a hard dynamic cost to our pharmacies.

But the medication itself will be completely free.

And the criteria for that is that if you are unemployed or on disability or on pensioner and that you have a mild to moderate illness, as your practitioner and the panel will be able to determine.

And then finally Tier Three is where the patient is an employed individual and is able to afford to contribute to their treatment at $40 per unit, regardless of the recommended retail of the medication. And as you can tell at $40 per unit, that is like anywhere between a 50 and 75 percent reduction in cost of the item itself.

So those are the three tiers.

Those are the criteria.

And of course, if there's any exceptional cases, the doctors can always apply for that. There is a space in the application for that. So you might be an employed person. So usually for tier three. But you may be taking care of, you know, sick family members with high medical bills or taking care of multiple families overseas.

There's always a space for exemptions in a case by case basis. We understand how complicated and dynamic these situations can be.

So in that summary and for heading to the Australian Medicinal Cannabis Association and for the practitioners to go to cannabiswarehouse.com.au and register for our pharmacy registration.

It really is as simple as those couple of things that I shared there.

Kel: Oh, beautiful. And I'll make sure they're linked in the show notes as well, so everyone can just click on and, and head there who, who wants to go on that journey. And I recommend anyone who's on the fence, you know, dive in, it's safe, it's warm, you'll be okay.

And thank you so much, Eric, for your time and wisdom today. It's really incredible what you guys are doing and what you've, you've founded and, and what's growing, which is, is, is like a tree. You know, you planted a little seed and it's growing now and it's blooming and it's wonderful to see. So, thanks so much.

Eric Chan: Kel, I really appreciate you inviting me on. We want to spread the word and share more about not only COMPASS, but where the cannabis industry is going, and more importantly, that there is a huge, and I mean a huge community of individuals in the industry who want to do the right thing, want to move medicinal cannabis forward and bring about a much better future for those who are suffering.

So it's, it's only because of platforms like yours and people willing to speak to us in this way. That we can share this message. So thank you so much.

Kel: Oh, thanks so much, Eric. I really appreciate your time today.

And that, dear listeners, brings to a close episode 11 of Phoenix Sound.

Now, for women with endometriosis, like my partner and myself, medical cannabis, offers a beacon of hope in a sea of often overpriced and subpar conventional treatment options. And on behalf of my partner and I, I'd just like to say thank you to AMCA and Eric for their care and commitment to leading with empathy and COMPASSion in this space.

We value you and we really appreciate you.

For more information about the COMPASS program, please visit the show notes.

Until next time, I'm Kel Myers, and this is Phoenix Sound.

Get full access to Phoenix Sound by Kel Myers at phoenixsound.substack.com/subscribe