Words: Russell Brown

Photography: Supplied

The healing power of the cannabis plant.

The green leaf sign in the window at 65 Upper Queen Street isn’t a large one, but it does say what happens inside the building – it’s the home of Green Doctors.

The clinic was an early leader in medicinal cannabis prescribing – Natalie Lowe and her husband Dr Mark Hotu opened Green Doctors in 2018, when there were only two products available for prescription.

The couple already had a mobile home health service called New Zealand Home Doctors, which had brought them into contact with patients with such severe chronic pain that they struggled to get out of bed. But it soon became evident to them that a bricks-and-mortar clinic where patients could come and talk to a doctor about being prescribed cannabis would be appropriate. The tight rules around advertising cannabis products didn’t make it easy (“Back then we were excited if we saw 10 patients a week,” Natalie recalls) but the Jervois Road clinic’s reputation gradually developed, as did some challenges.

Covid arrived just as they moved to another Ponsonby address, in Cowan Street. They ran their business from their home and by the time they could return to the clinic, the place was too small for the work they were doing. Then early last year, not long after they made the move to the Upper Queen Street site, Mark succumbed to a cancer he had been battling for some time.

Natalie, whose background is in advertising and marketing, was left with two daughters and a medical business to care for. Although she had her husband’s former colleagues and his sisters (both of whom are doctors) for advice, she still had to master the clinic’s systems, hire and train new doctors and ensure patients got their products.

“It was a real struggle and a few people were unnecessarily nasty when I was trying to deal with the grief,” she says. “ We had run the clinic together anyway, we had been doing it a long time and I felt like I knew how to progress it.” 

Uptown suits her: it’s an easy drive from home in Waterview “and it’s central without being in the central city. The space here is great. I can provide parking to my staff, it’s quite accessible for people to come and pick up and there’s a disabled park downstairs – and it’s flat, there’s no stairs for anyone coming with a wheelchair or crutches.”

Although patients can come to the clinic to pick up the medication they’ve been prescribed, consultations are done by phone now. It helps keep costs down – a consultation is only $49 – and means the clinic can serve people anywhere.

Three doctors share the consulting work and before booking a consultation, patients are asked to complete an online questionnaire.

“Everything’s online, it’s all integrated into our system. People can book their own time. What they discuss in their consult is their business, but typically it would be why they want medicinal cannabis, what’s their medical history and what medications they’re taking, to make sure there are no drug interactions. And ruling out psychosis or schizophrenia – we will not be prescribing THC products to those people.” 

It’s also important for doctors to know the patient’s own history of cannabis use. Regular users might not get much benefit from products containing little or no THC, while those who aren’t cannabis users could experience unpleasant effects from high-THC products.

“That can be the case for some people – and funnily enough, I’m one of them. I take one that’s just in the middle, Tilray 10/10 oil, for sleep. And it’s changed my life.”

Most people come seeking help with pain, anxiety or sleep problems, she says, “but we can prescribe for many more conditions than doctors in Australia, which is great, because it gives people the opportunity to try it. If it doesn’t work, then fine. It’s not a silver bullet.”

The big change in cannabis prescribing since last year is the arrival of cannabis flower products that meet the Medicinal Cannabis Scheme’s quality standards. So adults can now legally get cannabis, from a non-psychoactive CBD-only strain to high- THC buds. The advertising restrictions mean that exactly what’s available can only be discussed in the consultation. The clinic also sells medically-approved vaporizers, which aren’t cheap, but are much healthier than smoking.

Along with the prescribing doctors, the clinic also employs three administrative staff and two nurses.

“I reiterate to the staff that we are the gold standard clinic,” says Natalie. “We might be a bit smaller than some of the other clinics, but that’s the way I like it. I’ve grown it slow and steady, just to be sure that our patients are looked after. We just do our thing and our priority is patient care. We do it the right way.”