Its minister, Khairy Jamaluddin, said the framework for the CBD product registration would be obtained this year and the National Pharmaceutical Regulatory Agency (NPRA) would assess the proposals.
“I foresee that we will be able to begin the registration of several CBD products next year, but what’s important isn’t the product itself.
“We need to see the veracity of the product data from the safety aspects and its effectiveness against certain diseases.
“Education and scientific exposure (on this matter) would need to be provided to medical officers in Malaysia,” he told reporters after the launch of a report titled “How Do Malaysians Really Feel About Drugs?” by The Centre, a think tank co-founded by Khairy that conducted a survey on 500 adults nationwide in April.
He also stressed that the use of CBD would be by prescription only, not for personal and self-medicating use and would never encompass recreational use.
“It (CBD) cannot be sold over the counter. It must be through prescriptions and what’s important is that when the product is available, doctors will know how to prescribe it,” he said.
Khairy said the matter would take some time as the ministry was taking a cautious approach and was viewing international practices and scientific data on the use of CBD products.
He said the ministry would begin with assessing CBD product registrations, which is open to all, followed by clinical tests that encompass human trials conducted by Malaysian researchers on CBD use.
The ministry was also having discussions with researchers from Universiti Malaya to have them conduct clinical trials for CBD use on several medical conditions in the country.
“When we have evidence from clinical trials for certain diseases or conditions, then it will boost the use and provision of CBD by medical officers,” he said.
On whether the CBD framework approval would lead to cannabis cultivation in Malaysia, Khairy said it would not be so in the near future.
“We will consider cultivation, we will go step-by-step. We will start with registering a few products and see how well it’s received by doctors and patients.
“If it’s well received, safe and effective, then we can think about cultivation,” he said.
He said there had been many proposals to open cannabis farms, but Malaysia had not reached that stage yet.