This week it was revealed there is a support for a cross-party Federal Bill that could see medical cannabis legally grown and prescribed to patients as early as next year.
So far, so good.
But I fear the devil may be lurking in the detail and that the move might have missed some parts that matter.
Importantly, because they have been so slow and apply to only a small group, the positive changes will make little immediate difference to most who are currently accessing medical cannabis illegally.
Greens leader Senator Richard Di Natale announced on Monday that the Bill to create a regulator for medicinal cannabis for certain conditions had been drafted and would be put before the Senate for a vote in November. It is said to have initial support from the Prime Minister.
Victoria and NSW state governments have indicated that they want to get moving on legalising medical cannabis, but a federal regulatory scheme is required to issue grower licences and allow doctors to prescribe it. Queensland will be a kind of offsider, joining in on any ventures the southern states start.
The moves this week effectively acknowledge the benefits of medical cannabis but still do not legalise the substances and the supply lines those who use it have found to work. And it severely restricts who will be allowed to have it.
So, in effect, the move might be positive for the future, but troubling for the present.
The Victorian Government has pledged to set up an Office of Medicinal Cannabis by the end of the year to oversee research, development and the dispensing of cannabis products through pharmacies to patients with a prescription from a medical specialist.
This troubles me as the appointment time lag can be excruciating for those suffering and the system is contingent on the doctors being more inclined to prescribe medical cannabis than their pharmaceutical of choice.
Scientific evidence shows cannabis to be a plant of miraculous properties. It worries me that nature’s gift must be processed, controlled and taxed to be available.
But at least governments have pointed their feet in the right direction and have taken one step.
The science has been accepted elsewhere in the world. Twenty-three states in the US allow medical cannabis. In August, the National Cancer Institute, part of the US Department of Health, updated its website to include confirmation that cannabis has killed cancer in laboratories.
The update also says cannabis can be superior to conventional medicines in anti-tumour activity, neuropathic pain management, appetite stimulation and nausea control. Acceptance of the medical benefits is writ large by the highest health authority in that land.
I have seen first-hand the positive effects of medical cannabis on a person precious to me with cancer. I have had to deal in whispers and private messages to illegally find a product others had found mercifully effective.
The people I dealt with in securing a medical cannabis supply are not criminal characters. They were a mother who had battled breast cancer, a man who nursed his beloved wife, a nutritionist whose sole objective was to restore health: all forced to go outside the law for a treatment that is proven to have health-giving effects.
This is not pot. There is no smoking involved. It does not get a person high, but it certainly does ease nausea, seizures, pain, numbness, stinging and, in my experience, tumour size.
It is natural, miraculous and should be legal. It needs to be treated with respect and central to the required shift is a change in terminology.
For starters, it is cannabis, not marijuana. Cannabis is the Ancient Greek scientific term, mentioned by Herodotus more than 2400 years ago. In Australia, marijuana is grubby, a slang term stolen from Mexico.
And we need to start referring to cannabis as a medicine, not a drug, because the overtones of the words are different: medicine is a product that treats or prevents disease; drugs are a chemical substance that has a biological effect.
Importantly, while tobacco, alcohol and prescription pain killers — all legal — kill people by the thousand, no one has ever been documented as having died directly from a cannabis overdose.
No one.
Medical cannabis gives new life to those suffering — and it is past time this natural wonder was made freely legal.
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