NORML, Peter Dunne and Family First all agree on one thing – patients should have more access to effective medicinal cannabis.

But instead of wasting huge amounts of time and money on years of pharmaceutical-level testing, we should follow the Australian approach , treat it as a herbal remedy, and immediately allow compassionate access now for those in need. Medicinal use of cannabis is known to help with the symptoms of both everyday minor ailments as well as serious conditions including HIV, Alzheimer’s, arthritis, cancer and nausea, IBS, Crohn’s and other gastrointestinal disorders, epilepsy and seizures, glaucoma, hepatitis C, migraines, multiple sclerosis, pain, Tourette’s, improving the quality of life of the terminally ill, or for your sick pets . The US Government even holds a patent for medicinal cannabinoids Safe legal physician-supervised access to medicinal cannabis is supported by organisations including the American Academy of Family Physicians, American Public Health Association, British Medical Association, the Epilepsy Foundation, The Lymphoma Foundation of America, the Multiple Sclerosis Society, the Episcopal Church, the Presbyterian Church, the United Church of Christ, the United Methodist Church, the Union of Reform Judaism, and the Unitarian Universalist Association.

“If those products are shown as a result of the normal testing programme to be fit for purpose then we will permit them to be made available in New Zealand,” said Mr Dunne

In the USA, NORML took the government to court to force it to think rationally about medicinal cannabis. The DEA’s Administrative Law Judge Francis Young ruled in 1988 that: “Marijuana in its natural form is one of the safest therapeutically active substances known to man. By any measure of rational analysis marijuana can be safely used within the supervised routine of medical care.”

New Zealand is now lagging a long way behind the US on the issue of medicinal cannabis. So it was pleasing to note that even the conservative group Family First is now supporting (modest) reforms to our outdated policies around medicinal cannabis. In their recent press release , Family First says they are calling for:

the expansion of research into the components of the marijuana plant for delivery via non-smoked forms. (Supported by NZMA)

the establishment of an emergency or research program that allows seriously ill patients to obtain non-smoked components of marijuana before final Ministry of Health approval.

the Government instruct the Ministry of Health to update the prescribing guidelines for pharmaceutically based THC derivative medicines to include Sativex as a medicine under the Medicines Act 1981 and to continue to make pharmaceutically based THC derivative medicines available to treat serious medical conditions when traditional methods have failed.

However we were dismayed to read quotes they have attributed to NORML. In their press release , Family First falsely claim that US NORML founder Keith Stroup had said in a debate in 1973 that NORML was using the medical use issue as a “red herring for legalization.” Stroup responded to this in 2001 “That is obviously a lie, and it suggests how desperate these drug warriors have become… At NORML we believe it is unconscionable to continue to deny an effective medication to the seriously ill and dying, in order to advance a political agenda. That is precisely what our opponents are doing.”

The fact is, rather than being a cunning ruse to legalise all uses of cannabis, regulating medical cannabis would reduce the worst aspects of our failed War on Drugs. Of all the injustices committed in the name of protecting illicit drug consumers, perhaps the worst is arresting and jailing those who use or provide cannabis for medicinal purposes. Sick people and their caregivers need compassion, not punishment.