Hawke’s Bay medicinal cannabis clinic opens in Havelock North, doctor surprised at demand for prescriptions

Dr Andy Owen, of Cannabis Clinic, with some plants (not the kind you're thinking) at his first brick-and-mortar prescription clinic in Havelock North. Photo / Warren Buckland

The appetite Hawke’s Bay has for medicinal cannabis has surprised even the doctor prescribing it.

The cannabis prescription clinic opened in Havelock North at the start of April to allow hundreds of patients across the region to consult with a qualified doctor in person.

Cannabis Clinic currently serves about 300 patients in Hawke’s Bay after a 40 per cent growth in patient numbers over the last six months alone.

Dr Andy Owen, the clinic’s lead doctor, comes from the United States and has lived and worked in Hawke’s Bay for five years doing acute care.

He said he saw a need for a local service while working in acute care and seeing elderly patients that had been prescribed cannabis by their GP.

“I saw them when they had some issues like they hadn’t couldn’t figure out the right dose or they had taken a little too much and that can be scary, especially for people that aren’t used to using cannabis or elderly people and that can be really dangerous.”

He said he worked remotely in Hawke’s Bay for Cannabis Clinic, but he believed that face-to-face would be better for patients than consultation over the phone or Zoom.

The clinic is based in a room at Ultrasound Hawke’s Bay on 24 Porter Dr and opened on Tuesday.

“Right now it is going to be a two-day-a-week thing, Tuesdays and Thursdays in the afternoons,” Owen said.

He said he was surprised by the number of patients in Hawke’s Bay and the recent local growth in the last six months.

“I think a lot of that has to do with awareness. I can’t tell you how many times I will be talking to somebody and they say ‘I didn’t even know this was a thing’. It is not even discussed for the most part.”

Owen’s Cannabis Clinic patients use it for pain (40 per cent) anxiety (18 per cent) and sleep issues (15 per cent).

He said he noticed a lot more patients presenting with anxiety recently in his acute care work, but it was still too early to tell if there had been a definite rise of it appearing in his cannabis prescription appointments after Cyclone Gabrielle.

“I think I saw four or five folks [on Tuesday] and two were anxiety-related. One was work-related but indirectly associated with the flooding so I think it is just going to continue to present like that.”

He said he saw a wide range of people who used cannabis product treatments, from people over 90 years old to young people who had been prescribed CBD by other specialists for spasticity and epilepsy.

“It is not about the THC and getting stoned. I was a big sceptic before I started using CBD and I cannot say enough good things about it in regards to sorting stress relief, anxiety, just anecdotal stuff from my patients.”

According to Cannabis Clinic, initial consultation costs start at $99 or $59 with a prescription from a GP and $35 for follow-up appointments.

As for the cost of the products, indications from Cannabis Clinic are a starting price of $103, or $3 to $4 per day on a low to moderate dose for CBD oils, $195, or $1 to $2 per day on a low to moderate dose of THC oils and $259 or about $14 per gram for the most affordable THC flower product.

Medicinal cannabis is not subsidised by the government.

Nearly all medicinal cannabis products and CBD oils are considered unapproved medicine by Medsafe, which means only a health practitioner registered with the Medical Council of New Zealand as a practitioner of medicine can obtain them for their patients and also prescribe them.

The face-to-face clinic in Havelock North is by appointment only; consultations can be booked online through the Cannabis Clinic website.

All of the Cannabis Clinic’s clinicians are registered with the Medical Council of New Zealand or the Nursing Council of New Zealand.