Cry of mainstream pain: let us use marijuana
Polls put support for medical marijuana at 75 per cent. Procannabis supporters are stepping up their campaign. But the final impetus for a policy shift may spring from an unexpected quarter. Phil Vine reports
Nichola is a nurse from Taranaki who loves animals. Kat, by her own admission, i s a “grumpy” Christian kindy teacher from Nelson. Jacinta is another nurse and a tiger mother.
What do they have in common? Pain. Chronic pain. And dope. They don't like it, don't believe it should be used recreationally and don't want it universally legalised. Given the choice, they would never smoke it. What would they say at prayer meetings or the PTA?
Yet, these women are among those for whom this debate matters most. They have skin in the game. Skin which feels as if it’s been “pierced with a thousand hot needles”, assailed with “burning knives”, expressions of incredible pain that they've found marijuana helps to alleviate.
Last weekend, the pro- marijuana lobby decided to spark up outside police stations around the country. Unfortunately it rained a lot. Few people turned up.
Despite the fact that legalised medical marijuana was top of the protesters’ manifesto, Kat, Jacinta and Nichola were not among them.
There is a growing feeling among some patients that the likes of Norml and the Cannabis Party are using medical arguments to serve a goal of making marijuana legal for everyone.
“They're getting in the way and holding back progress for those who need it for medical reasons,” says Kat Le Brun. “That’s what the Government is looking at, these stoners, the bad side of it. I just wish they'd be quiet.”
Kat and her fellow sufferers are not going to be quiet any more.
“I believe we have to focus on the medical at this stage,” says Jacinta, who did not want her surname used.
“We need to look at one issue. This is too much for the politicians to deal with.”
Medical marijuana is legal in 25 American states. In Australia, Victoria and the ACT are preparing to join the party.
The conflation of medical marijuana and general legalisation may be one reason why New Zealand seems stuck. Ross Bell from the NZ Drug Foundation says that after years railing against the evils of marijuana, the Government is in a quandary.
“They think they are the drug warriors. Medical marijuana is confusing them . . . They don't know what to do to meet the needs of the 75 per cent.”
Patient frustration has led to a new conservative pressure group. It's called Medical Cannabis Awareness New Zealand, or MCANZ. The coordinator is Kat's husband, Shane Le Brun. The National Party voter and former soldier doesn't look like a marijuana campaigner.
“It's been a long journey,” he says. “Before my wife was injured we chucked flatmates out for drug use.”
Kat slipped on ice and ruptured two lumbar discs. After nine months she was put on heavy opiates for the pain. After two years she was operated on.
“The surgery removed the mechanical aspect of her pain but the nerves are permanently fried,” says Shane. “The pain does not abate.”
Shane says his wife has had 30- 40 visits to the emergency department for pain relief. One evening, they went to their neighbour's instead.
“She was a woman in her 50s with bad back pain and she medicated with cheap cask wine and marijuana.” The neighbour offered Kat a toke. “In quarter of an hour, Kat's pain went from an eight to a three.”
That night she slept properly for the first time in five years.
“Her mood for the next few days was much more bearable.”
Despite the benefits, Kat didn't make a habit of smoking cannabis. As a churchgoing Christian and mum, she feels she can't until it's legal.
Nichola Smith, a 36- year- old nurse from Inglewood, has chronic regional pain syndrome.
“It's the worst form of pain known,” she says. “You've got to look for any relief.” Relief from the pain, and from the side- effects of the opiates used to treat it.
Like Kat, Nichola has tried marijuana and found it transformative.
“It works and it's a crime that it's not available to us,” she says.
She, too, refuses to turn herself into a criminal: “I have quite strong values. I don't want to blur the lines.”
A legal form of medical marijuana i s available in New Zealand. It’s a mouthspray called Sativex. But at about $ 1200 a month, it is out of most people's reach.
It’s also extremely tough to access. Shane says fewer than 40 people have managed to get prescriptions, because of a bureaucratic process and reluctance of specialists to back applications.
Kat and Nichola were knocked back. Jacinta is among the successful ones.
Her daughter developed juvenile arthritis aged 11 and was put on opiates for the pain.
It took three years for the family to get medical sign- off for Sativex after four specialists said no.
“They were concerned about their peers and being ostracised by their professional bodies,” says Jacinta.
The marijuana medicine has wrought a “moderate improvement”. It means her daughter has been able to return to her studies.
But she, too, is opposed to legalisation for recreational use.
“Marijuana needs to be prescribed just like any other drug.”
Medical cannabis first started developing a mainstream following in the US when trials on multiple sclerosis patients and children with epilepsy showed encouraging signs.
The Ministry of Health remains sceptical. A report to Health Minister Jonathan Coleman, obtained under the Official Information Act, says “there is a lack of robust clinical data and evidence of patient benefit”.
Kat, Nichola and Jacinta's daughter all believe it eases chronic pain and is a great alternative to opiates.
One in five Kiwi adults suffers from chronic pain. Shane believes thousands could benefit from medical marijuana but is careful not to suggest it's a panacea, “like some hippies do”.
“At one end conservatives say it gives you schizophrenia and i s so Go to nzherald. co. nz for a video interview and details of the science behind medical marijuana. Phil Vine’s full story is online. addictive and horrible. Then you've got those who say it will cure all ills and you never need another drug again. The truth lies somewhere in the middle.”
Revelations that Martin Crowe and Sir Paul Holmes used marijuana to mitigate the effects of chemotherapy no doubt bolstered appetite for change.
Nelson activist Rose Renton is another reason medical marijuana has been in the public eye.
Her son Alex died last July after an unknown neurological disease. Rose fought for six weeks to be allowed to give him cannabis oil. It was approved just before his death.
It helped him find peace at the end, she says.
Rose has 12,000 signatures on a petition calling for a referendum on medical marijuana.
“If your doctor recommends that cannabis can alleviate and support you then it should not have to be government- approved.”
At $ 1200 a month she thinks the price of the legal product Sativex is “obscene”.
“The amount of cannabis in Sativex is $ 50 to $ 60.”
Since she started campaigning she has been contacted by people wanting to grow their own.
“When elderly people ask you for seed to grow it next to their broccoli, you know you have a wave of change.”
But as Ross Bell warns, if you are treating kids with seizures you probably want pharmaceuticals rather than just anyone boiling up cannabis oil.
MCANZ i s supportive of Rose's work, but as a conservative charity can't support home- growing.
“As the only patient- led group playing within the rules we hope to be taken a little more seriously,” says Shane.
“All we care about is getting medicine into patients’ hands and getting rid of the background noise.”
MCANZ i s trying to make t wo cannabis- based medicines from a Canadian company called Tilray available for patients.
First, they have to be assessed by the Ministry of Health, then signed off by Associate Health Minister Peter Dunne. Earlier this year, the ministry deferred an application from trade union leader Helen Kelly for a cannabis product to help mitigate pain and nausea. She has terminal cancer.
The MCANZ applications are expected to land on Dunne's desk in the next few weeks.
In the meantime, Kat and Shane are contemplating a second baby. They hope medical marijuana may be available by the time it arrives. Their first was born addicted to narcotics because of the painkillers Kat had been prescribed.
“For t wo weeks he had to go through withdrawals,” says Kat. “I would not wish that on anyone. That's what opiates do.”
She sobs on Shane's shoulder. He is used to comforting her. They are sharing this personal story in the hope that the decision- makers will listen.
“They should come and sit with us and see what goes on with our families on a daily basis. There's so much suffering our people go through. All behind closed doors. The only way is to open it up.”