War on Wellness
The TGA approves opioids that kill people every day.
Cannabis has no recorded lethal dose. Guess which one they're restricting.
Dr Brian Walker MLC has 12 documented reasons why the TGA cannot be trusted on this. Read them. Share them.
The Problem
Who gets hurt when the TGA restricts access?
The Therapeutic Goods Administration's proposed restrictions are not abstract regulatory adjustments. They have real consequences for real people.
The Patient
- Your medicine may be banned or restricted
- Your doctor drowns in paperwork just to prescribe it
- What works for you today might not be available tomorrow
- Costs go up every time a new barrier is added
- If you live in regional WA, you may have no readily accessible alternative
The Doctor
- More paperwork to prescribe cannabis than opioids
- Risk your licence for prescribing a drug with no lethal dose
- Patients pushed back onto drugs that kill people
- Your clinical judgement overruled by an anonymous committee
The Citizen
- A federal regulator making major decisions in secret
- Your consultation response was misrepresented
- No minister owns this. No parliament voted on it.
- You are paying for a system that lied about what you said
The TGA has framed its proposed restrictions as a response to safety concerns and public consultation. I have examined both claims. Neither withstands scrutiny.
- Dr Brian Walker MLC, GP (45 years)
The Evidence
Twelve reasons the TGA cannot be trusted on this.
The Data
We analysed every published submission to the TGA's consultation. All 524 of them.
Brian's office downloaded the published submissions from the TGA's own platform and ran the numbers. The results contradict the TGA's own summary - on every key question. Explore the full interactive analysis.
Explore the consultation data →
“I love science. What I do not love is what is being done to it. The TGA is not following the evidence. It is using evidence - selectively, strategically, and in some cases from within its own committee - to justify a decision it has already made. That is not how a regulator in a democracy is supposed to work.”
Dr Brian Walker MLC, GP (45 years)
What I am demanding
A federal parliamentary inquiry into TGA accountability.
The TGA is a federal body. Its decisions affect every Australian. No state parliament can scrutinise it. No individual minister owns its decisions. No patient has meaningful recourse when it gets things wrong.
I am calling on the relevant federal health ministers to establish an independent parliamentary inquiry into the TGA's medicinal cannabis review process - examining:
- ✓The composition and declared conflicts of the Expert Working Group
- ✓The methodology used to select and assess evidence
- ✓The accuracy of the TGA's summary of public consultation findings
- ✓The process by which the TGA's discussion paper was disclosed via FOI before appearing on its own disclosure log
- ✓The framework for regulating botanical medicines under a system designed for pharmaceutical drugs
This inquiry should be conducted at the federal level. Medicinal cannabis is not a WA issue. It is a national one. The 700,000 Australians who depend on this medicine deserve a regulator that is accountable, transparent, and honest.
How you can help
Three things you can do right now.
1. Share this page
The most powerful thing you can do is tell other people this is happening. Use this caption or write your own:
Australia's drug regulator lied about what 700,000 people said in their own consultation. Dr Brian Walker MLC has the data. Read it. Share it. Make some noise. → brianwalkermlc.com.au/tga
2. Email your federal MP
Your federal MP sits in the parliament that oversees the TGA. They need to hear from you.
Subject
I'm calling for a parliamentary inquiry into the TGA's medicinal cannabis review
Body
3. Follow Brian for updates
This campaign is ongoing. As the TGA makes its decisions, Brian will continue to hold them to account.
Dr Brian Walker MLC does not receive funding from the medicinal cannabis industry.
For media enquiries, contact the office of Dr Brian Walker MLC.
Full consultation data analysis →