‘I’VE BEEN FORCED OUT OF KERRY’
Kerry woman’s relief as cannabis transforms her life
A NORTH Kerry mother has been forced to leave behind everything she’s ever known, including her partner and son, in order to gain access to medicinal cannabis in the Netherlands.
Kirsten Rigney (32), who suffers from severe Fibromylagia, chronic fatigue syndrome and hyper mobility joint pain, travelled to Amsterdam on July 7.
Kirsten said that she grew sick and tired of being “bounced around” various consultants who refused to prescribe medicinal cannabis for her.
She said that there were some days that she could not bear to move her arms or legs such was the debilitating pain that often left her wheelchair bound.
Since arriving in The Netherlands, however, Kirsten said she has been able to smoke cannabis in the city’s coffee shops while she awaits prescription medicine from a doctor in the country and it has transformed her life, she claimed.
“To be standing here in another country and to actually be able to cycle a bike and walk outside for the first time in years, it’s amazing,” she said on Tuesday.
She plans to stay there indefinitely until she is allowed to access cannabis oil (THC) which cannot be accessed under prescription in Ireland.
“I have no choice but to stay here. I won’t go back to the pain that I was in.
“I won’t go back to the way I was living before because it wasn’t really a life,” she added.