SOCIETY OF CANNABIS CLINICIANS - AUSTRALIAN CHAPTER

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Dr Nick Giummara is a fully qualified, vocationally registered GP with the FRACGP. 

After many years of working as a family doctor, he decided to sub-specialise in this exciting field of medicine whilst working from home and spending more time with his young family.

Having been a part of busy medical practices, he has a strong desire to keep the number of patients he sees capped to ensure quality, personalised and attentive service, whilst being available for reliable follow up.

He believes there is growing evidence that supports medicinal cannabis’ ability to help patients where other pharmaceuticals have failed, and will encourage new patients to join clinical trials to help grow the evidence.

Although he does not guarantee patients that initial consultations will lead to prescriptions, he assures them that any advice given takes into  account, their holistic circumstances, as well as the medical recommendations.

Dr. David Gunn is a Canadian doctor who moved with his family to the Northern Rivers, NSW in 2017. 

He currently works in Lismore, as a GP with special interests in Mental Health, Sports Medicine, Addictions Medicine, Palliative Care, Geriatrics, Autism Spectrum Disorder, Chronic Progressive Neurologic Disorders, Chronic pain and the medical use of Cannabinoids.

The first 12 years of his career revolved around a small but busy general hospital in Nova Scotia, Canada, where in addition to his GP duties he worked in: emergency medicine, inpatient care, nursing home care, palliative care, and opioid replacement medicine. 

In addition to many years of prescribing cannabinoids in Canada, Dr Gunn continues to prescribe them here in Australia in his family practice and has been appointed as a Medical Advisor for Emerald Clinics, which are specialist referral only clinics in WA and NSW. 

He has completed the Australian Medical Cannabis Course for Healthcare Professionals from UIC and the Australian National University. Dr Gunn has also received training from Dr Danial Schecter the Co-founder and Medical Director of the Canadian Cannabinoid Medical Clinics, which are the largest referral only medical cannabinoid clinics in Canada.

Prof. Lintzeris is Conjoint Professor, Specialty Addiction Medicine at the University of Sydney and Director, Drug and Alcohol Services for the South Eastern Sydney Local Health District.

He has more than thirty years’ experience working in the Alcohol and other Drugs sector as a clinician (Addiction Medicine Specialist), is a researcher (PhD with over 200 peer review journal publications); and has been involved in training and education of health care providers and policy (e.g. Past President Chapter Addiction Medicine, Royal Australasian College Physicians).

Prof. Lintzeris has been active as a clinician researcher examining the management of people with cannabis use disorder (Chief Investigator of over 6 NHMRC funded RCTs of interventions for cannabis use disorder). He has led several NHMRC funded trials of medicinal cannabis for the treatment of cannabis use disorder, including the role of nabiximols (x 2 RCTs) and current Chief Investigator of an RCT of CBD for cannabis use disorder. He has also been active in medicinal cannabis research for other health conditions.

Prof. Lintzeris was the founding Clinical Director of the Lambert Initiative (USyd) in 2016-17. He has been an Investigator in several NSW Health and MRFF funded trials of medicinal cannabis – including in the areas of chronic pain, palliative care and chemotherapy.

He has been the Chief Investigator of the Cannabis As Medicine Surveys (2016, 2018, 2020, 2022) examining consumer perspectives of medical cannabis in Australia, and research examining health care provider perspectives regarding medicinal cannabis.

He is an active medicinal cannabis prescriber (in private practice), focusing on the use of medicinal cannabis in people with cannabis use disorder – often with other co-morbid health conditions.

Dr. Matty Moore was born and raised in Austin, Texas USA. He attended Baylor University where he gained a BA in Biology. He then attended Ross University in Dominica, West Indies. Following his residency at the University of Wyoming Family Medicine Program, Rural GP Training, Matty moved into private practice in Wyoming before moving to Australia 

After initially working in a busy Emergency Department in Townsville, QLD, Matty moved back into General Practice, which took his family over to Western Australia - the perfect place for Matty and his wife to grow their family.  He now works as an SMO (Senior Medical Officer) in Busselton Emergency Department and as a GP at Dunsborough Medical Centre.  His interest in medicinal cannabis stems from the movement and acceptance of its properties in the USA and around the world. 

Matty was looking for alternative treatments for several conditions whose management had become quite stagnant and frustrating. After government legislation in 2016 which allowed GP's to prescribe cannabis, Matty began to educate himself on the history of cannabis, the cannabis plant, and the endocannabinoid system. He has since been approved by the TGA and WA Health to become one of a very few group of doctors Australia-wide deemed as an ‘Authorized Prescriber.’  The clinical applications are exciting, and as we amass the data needed to turn the tide, Matty has decided to join the fight against the age-old propaganda and embrace this plant and its healing properties.

Justin joined the Australian Natural Therapeutics Group in March 2021 as Chief Scientific Officer with ANTG.   

Previously a Research Fellow at the NICM Health Research Institute at the University of Western Sydney, Justin coordinated the Australian Medicinal Cannabis Research & Education Collaboration (AMCREC).  

Justin is a member of the Society of Cannabis Clinicians Australian Chapter (SCCAC) Advisory Panel and has also served as an advisor to United in Compassion, Australia’s leading medicinal cannabis patient advocacy group, in a pro bono capacity, since January 2015.  

Justin's scientific background is in pharmacognosy (i.e. drugs that come from plants, fungi and natural sources), but his research interests extend into botany, ethnopharmacology, analytical phytochemistry and psychopharmacology.   He is currently a co-investigator on several medicinal cannabis clinical research projects and has presented over 70 medicinal cannabis lectures to medical practitioners, nurses, pharmacists and the general public since 2016.   

Justin has published on the topics of cannabis and the endocannabinoid system, pain management and herb/drug interactions in peer reviewed publications and is currently pursuing research focusing on the safety, tolerability and effectiveness of medicinal cannabis for endometriosis.  

Dr Joel Wren is a GP and Cannabis clinician working in Adelaide, South Australia. 

‍Joel has long been fascinated with plant-based pharmaceuticals, growing to appreciate the potential of our natural world. Seeing his patients' hunger for natural medicines prompted him to learn more about holistic health, taking into consideration every aspect of a patient's health journey including social, mental, physical, and nutritional health. 

Joel was chosen to present to the United Nations Commission on Narcotic Drugs (CND) on behalf of the Society of Cannabis Clinicians to discuss the rescheduling of MC from archaic classifications. He has since become the President of the Australian Chapter.   

 When Joel isn’t working, he’s looking after his 3 dogs and advocating for animal wellbeing, understanding that their journey can be as important and complicated as our own.