Medicinal Cannabis Bill set to pass Parliament; patients celebrate ambivalently

ByThe Daily Blog
The Government’s Medicinal Cannabis bill is set to pass its final reading on Tuesday afternoon – a momentous and complicated day for medicinal cannabis patients.

“This is a historic day. From Helen Kelly onward, brave people coming forward and sharing their stories around medicinal cannabis have provoked a law change. Compassion is winning,” said Rebecca Reider, a medicinal cannabis patient and NORML NZ board member. “Let’s celebrate.”

“However, a lot of us also have mixed feelings at the moment. New Zealand is catching up with the rest of the world, but this new law has only delivered part of what we hoped for,” Reider said.

The new law will make prescribing cannabidiol (CBD) more straightforward, and mandates the regulations for a medicinal cannabis scheme to be set within 12 months, including access to local genetics. Until then, some patients will be given a legal defence against charges of procuring, possessing or using cannabis.
As soon as the Medicinal Cannabis Amendment Bill becomes law, dying people who use medicinal cannabis will have a defence in court. But other patients will still be subject to prosecution until the national medicinal cannabis scheme comes online – the details of which are still unclear.
“The legal defence should cover more patients, but it is good that an estimated 25,000 patients will be immediately protected,” said Chris Fowlie, president of NORML New Zealand Inc.
“Allowing varieties that are already established in New Zealand will help support a thriving Kiwi cannabis industry, with a role for genuine breeders and pioneers,” added Mr Fowlie.
One of the biggest disappointments of the Government bill, for many medicinal cannabis advocates, is the ongoing ban on home growing by patients.

“Home cultivation is legal for all medicinal cannabis patients in Canada, as well as the majority of patients in US medicinal cannabis states,” said Reider. “Why are New Zealand’s MPs being so timid? This Government is willing to let big companies grow cannabis for us, but won’t let us continue to do it for ourselves and each other. This is upsetting for many patients, as chronically ill people often don’t have spare cash to buy commercial cannabis.”

Many medicinal cannabis users will be watching the upcoming cannabis referendum process with hope. “New Zealanders on the whole have much more relaxed attitudes about cannabis than our MPs do,” Reider said. “So we hope that in the referendum our fellow citizens will grant everyone the simple right to grow and possess this helpful plant.”

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12 Comments

  1. If we can be more liberal and accepting of same sex marriages and peoples sexually then we need to be the same with cannabis laws instead of treating too many kiwis like criminals.

  2. “Why are New Zealand’s MPs being so timid? This Government is willing to let big companies grow cannabis for us, but won’t let us continue to do it for ourselves and each other.”

    Exactly. They’ve caved in to Big Pharma. Just as they do to Big Everything else.

  4. NZ First is the party dragging its heels … and yet the Labour Party thanked them for allowing medicinal marijuana for those in palliative care.

    The alternative was to do a deal with National.

    1. fuck new zealand first – repeat after me – fuck new zealand first…

      a party of soaks and lushes – who celebrate our number one killer-drug..

      and who have stopped real reform..

      fuck new zealand first..!

  5. How nice and caring is this labour government. Just like all austerity governments, the gentle iron glove back hands the poor and disabled on the march to protect profit.

    Kindness, I’m really struggling how anyone can see kindness in this legislation. Wait, no they being nice to those who want to profit of the sick and disabled.

  6. They will titrate your access to comfort, even death. They will titrate and meter anything you could possibly want or need including food and water. The model is an abstraction of predation, a kind of farming, totally devoid of anything you might have once thought of as moral. All the necessities of life are therefore warehoused, and you must pay a ransom to receive a ration of life. And you will be worked to death acquiring the funds for the ransom. The question is, are we as good as dead now, or would we actually be better off dead? Your conundrum for the day.

  7. a very small step in the right direction and after 50 years+ of Prohibition we see exactly the thing we preached against, big business access only cause the rest of us are just criminal scum, i still say make all them politicians walk the plank into a volcano fuk im all, now for the carbon tax revolution

  8. About time this govt upheld our own sick people’s human rights to use this plant to assist the sick before they concern themselves with human rights of migrants.

    We have the same human right as Brazil in our own Bill of Rights Acr.

    Why does the HRC allow sections in MODA that are contrary to human rights now upheld by the Courts of Canada, Mexico and Brazil.

    https://www.upi.com/Brazilian-parents-get-judges-OK-to-grow-marijuana-for-sick-son/5341541532878/

  9. Thank you Countryboy, it’s all horrible but you made me laugh & keep laughing, mainly at us NZers & how stupid we are letting Them get away with it, all the time, as you say so sharply.

    For Godsake, I already got approved by Peter Dunne to have medicinal cannabis for my MS. I (plus many others)didn’t take it up – it cost over $1k a month. So what is bloody changing? Is our Labour-led government supporting the bill because it’s good for business? Lots of you are saying that & we’re all right.

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