So our politicians are experts on weed now

I’m heading home today, with a last-minute ticket to see Mum. The last time we talked she felt like a ‘‘bag of s...’’, having not slept that night. The time before that, she said it felt as if a truck hit her every time she sat up to get out of bed. And, weeks ago now, she described a feeling ‘‘similar to a nail being hammered in above your eye’’.

It’s obvious, then, the painkillers aren’t working. She’s on a lot of them. A collection of white pill containers sit atop her bedside shelf. On the kitchen bench, Nurofen boxes are scattered beside the toaster – they’re the go-to when she maxes her daily prescription doses.

When she visited the doctor last week, she walked out with injections to add to her growing pharmacy. These aren’t benevolent drugs she’s on. They’re hardcore pharmaceuticals. They’re knock you out, shoot your nerves, get-you-addicted kind of stuff. It’s scary stuff, quite honestly. So scary I don’t even ask about the needles – thinking about them makes me shudder.

And yet, despite the extremity, it doesn’t really work. The drugs are a Band-Aid on an open wound. It can hold back the deluge momentarily, but chemists don’t seem to have developed anything effective enough to restrain cluster headaches.

It’s an agonising condition that can hit without warning and stay for weeks, months even. The condition is known online as ‘‘suicide headaches’’. The pain is beyond what most of us can comprehend, and as yet it is an incurable condition.

My mum is one of 0.5 to 2 per cent of New Zealand suffering cluster headaches. She and her small, unlucky group join an estimated one in six people who deal with extreme, recurrent pain in New Zealand.

Everyone will know someone dealing with debilitating pain. There are people with few options, who will wait it out in bed because nothing makes it bearable. They could be waiting forever.

It’s sad to think about people who are forced to sit and bear pain, not knowing when it will stop. It’s enraging to think we live in a country that potentially adds to that suffering, by taking away one option that could help: medicinal cannabis.

I’m not here to argue the pros and cons of marijuana. We should leave that to professionals.

But, if cannabis can help those in pain, I believe we should allow it. Cannabis should, at least, be treated like any other drug and made available for doctors to prescribe. There’s only one reason governments have restricted access to this particular drug, and that reason is moral panic.

It is an absurd, anti-science argument that has led to this situation. Currently, two doctors must make a request to the minister of health if they want to prescribe a patient cannabis-based medicine.

What does a politician know about medicine, that doctors do not? Nothing. What reasons do politicians have to withhold medicinal cannabis from those who may need it? None.

Nevertheless, politicians appointed themselves our doctors-in-chief. Whilst I concede they are skilled in areas such as exploiting public fears and breeding apathy, I doubt that makes them a good judge of how to administer pain relief.

It’s hard to understand their logic, if there was any, behind the decision to withhold medication.

But it is good that, suddenly, medicinal cannabis is all the rage. After near-nil action being taken, we’re now presented with two bills on the subject.

The Government and National Party both have near identical plans to slowly give doctors access to cannabis-based products – but they won’t work together. National has added a bunch of regulations and pointless rules to its bill, such as banning the smoking of cannabis, no doubt introduced to appease uneducated judger-nauts. It also doesn’t support a temporary measure, suggested by the Government, to allow the terminally ill an excuse to source their own cannabis.

Meanwhile, Labour has proposed leaving it mostly up to officials to decide how the new medicinal cannabis scheme will run. The party’s been so coy on details, it’s hard to know what will happen.

After all this, the back-and-forth between parties is utterly confusing. For those holding hope that cannabis could ease their pain, I would be cautious. It looks like a long road of politics is ahead.

The Government and National seem incapable of working together. You could say National is guilty of stalling. It originally opposed the medicinal cannabis reforms.

But all of that doesn’t matter. People in pain, or looking for a way to manage their illnesses, deserve fast action. They deserve access to the best options medicine can provide, whatever that is. I just hope Parliament gets on with it, so doctors can do their jobs.

Cannabis should, at least, be treated like any other drug and made available for doctors to prescribe.