Thursday 17 September 2015

Medical marijuana for some or medical marijuana for all?

A couple of weeks a back I was visiting a psychiatrist in Hamilton seeking an assessment and a form of supervision to bounce around my ideas. He finds me quite interesting as I discussed my study of cannabis and post graduate research and he urged me to continue my study and complete my masters degree. I informed him that higher academic study may get me heard at a higher academic level but I am probably past thirsting for knowledge. I'm too comfortable at home with my grandson and preparing for a new baby. A dog or fur baby. He also said he meets once a month with a few other professionals each month and they discuss issues, including cannabis. So it was pretty good. On Sunday night there was a great medicinal story on cannabis about dravets syndrome and how one mother has been giving her child cannabis oil, extract of CBD. This is as illegal as any other use of cannabis and she has risked both her arrest and possible involvement of CYfs with the fact she is giving an illegal preparation to her child. This Mother, like Rose Renton has been operating in secret and isolation until now. There is also a bit of a split occurring and factions within medical marijuana and the medical users community. Green cross has been around in New Zealand in several locations with several different founding members still working hard for the cause. The most well known and out spoken was Billy McKee and Neville Yates and Danueil clarke before him. Billy McKee follows the traditional green cross recognition of the whole plant and a persons right to grow their own. A split and a bit of strengthening of the GreenCross and medical model arrived when the synthetic cannabis hit the streets. Any person worth their salt, user or grower of cannabis instantly disliked this product and saw it as unsafe and not part of a cannabis law reform debate. This is a corporate takeover and development of a new product to fit an existing market. Pure business and no bottom line, no real health concerns. Then Sativex and GE pharmaceuticals entered the New Zealand market. dr David Hadorn one of the originals with GW lives in New Zealand. sativex needs a specialist to prescribe and is prohibitively expensive. Dearer than buying several ounces per month , kind of expensive. It may be a great product if you have lots of money but not many of the green cross patients I know are financially able to afford this. in fact if you know a bit about about cannabis use in New Zealand you will know that the financial situation after a cannabis conviction is unlikely to be too rosey. Like most people who are sick or invalid they are not working, so their income is meagre. The number of difficulties I have encountered when trying to organise a medical marijuana gathering has been very difficult due to lack of mobility and lack of funds. So the split between those who want to follow the current medical model and have a doctor prescribe and those who want to grow their own plants is mostly due to affordability.