Cannabis law leaves us light-headed

Legislation is often merely the final, official acknowledgement of a situation or practice that has long been in place and is largely accepted by the populace. Even when those practices are controversial.

So it was with homosexual law reform and prostitution legislation.In both cases, the sky remained intact.

This week the Government attempted to finally acknowledge and legitimise what has been going on for a number of years: terminally ill people and those suffering chronic pain turning to cannabis to relieve debilitating symptoms.

Health Minister David Clark introduced the Misuse of Drugs Amendment Bill to give people access to medicinal cannabis and create a scheme to produce such products in this country in future. The legislation would, among other things, ‘‘introduce a medicinal cannabis scheme to enable access to quality products’’ and also ‘‘remove cannabidoil from the schedule of controlled drugs’’.

Polls have shown Kiwis are largely supportive of people in pain or near the end of their lives having access to anything that will ease that passage.

So it’s right that our politicians make progress towards something that the public and, more importantly, those in great pain, say is needed.

Interestingly this legislation was introduced on the same day that Green MP Chloe Swarbrick’s own member’s bill was discussed.

It goes much further, giving sufferers the right to grow their own cannabis or be supplied by others.

Clark has acknowledged that his legislation is not as bold as Swarbrick’s and ‘‘won’t make the activists happy’’. But the rest of us will be left a little confused.

The infrastructure and industry to grow and manufacture medicinal cannabis will take some time to set up, so in the meantime the Government wants to ‘‘introduce a statutory defence for terminally ill people to possess and use illicit cannabis’’.

That seems sensible, but it will still be illegal to supply that cannabis, ‘‘unless it is pursuant to a valid prescription from a medical practitioner’’.

That seems like a halfway house of legal and moral horrors: dealers would now be semilegitimate pharmacists acting on a prescription from a doctor.

It is questionable whether that is any better than Swarbrick’s allowance that mature people be allowed to grow their own, for personal use and relief from chronic pain.

It appears the Government is twisting itself in knots to avoid any link to the controversial and polarising subject of decriminalisation.