Turei Metiria: General Debate 
Turei Metiria: General Debate 
[Volume:635;Page:6718] 
METIRIA TUREI (Green) 
: 
 Tena koe Mr Assistant Speaker. My Misuse of Drugs (Medicinal Cannabis) Amendment Bill was pulled out of the ballot in June of this year and was set down to be debated today but I have decided to delay it. I do not think Parliament is quite ready yet to have the rational conversation about medicinal cannabis that is needed. My bill would amend the Misuse of Drugs Act so that doctors not politicians will decide whether a person should be prescribed this drug. It is a critical issue for ill New Zealanders that deserves to be treated with the utmost care and consideration. Instead today a 2991 signature petition was tabled asking that Parliament give urgent consideration to changing the law to allow individuals to obtain possess and use cannabis for treatment of serious medical conditions when this has been recommended or endorsed in writing by the individual’s registered medical practitioner. This petition will go to the Health Committee enabling members of Parliament to investigate the legal framework options fully. 
Cannabis does have proven medicinal properties. Research from the US Israel Germany Britain Canada and other countries has proven that it is useful in treating HIV and cancer wasting syndrome nausea caused by chemotherapy and other pharmaceutical drugs muscle spasms neurological disorders spinal cord injuries and chronic pain that simply cannot be relieved by other conventional medicines. 
Cannabis is prescribed every day in other countries. In Canada and in 11 states in the US cannabis can be grown for medical use. In Britain Sativex a pharmaceutical preparation is used by doctors on a case-by-case basis. In the Netherlands the equivalent of our Ministry of Health distributes medical grade cannabis through pharmacies. In New South Wales there is a 4-year trial project proposed to allow patients with severe nausea and severe pain to access medicinal cannabis. It is not being provided for the purposes of smoking I hasten to add for members. It can be and is being delivered in forms that are dosage-controlled effective and rapid and which completely avoid the need to smoke the raw material like a cigarette. Smoking of cannabis for medicinal purposes is simply not an issue. 
Here in New Zealand there is ample community and medical support for medicinal use. A television poll recently showed that 63 percent of people agreed that it should be available by prescription. The New Zealand Medical Association has said that the benefits and delivery systems for medicinal use should be researched in this country. There is support from organisations like the New Zealand AIDS Foundation and the New Zealand Drug Foundation and significant pharmacological research is being done in New Zealand at the moment. A doctors’ survey in 2005 found that one in five doctors had patients that use cannabis for medicinal purposes. Thirty-two percent of those doctors surveyed would consider prescribing it if it were legal and 10 percent had current patients who they believed would benefit from it. Surely this is a medical issue and not a political one. 
But evidence research community and professional support are not the barriers to amending the law to make prescription for medical use easier. There are hundreds of ill New Zealanders with an absolutely genuine need for this drug who are either because of the law criminals and facing jail or are left in pain and isolation because they are too frightened of the law to use it to relieve their suffering. Patients with a variety of conditions from chronic social anxiety to Nail Patella syndrome are desperate for a legal framework that will allow them to use this drug—desperate for a legal framework that will protect them from both the police and from thieves. 
The evidence of effectiveness is overwhelming. The models for a better system are ours for the picking. The only real barrier to enabling an easier and more humane system for prescription cannabis is the prejudice that some people hold against cannabis users. It is this prejudice that means that as a community we deny ill New Zealanders access to a viable useful medicine. Surely we have a responsibility wherever practicable to relieve the suffering of sick people. 
Medicinal cannabis can be provided to patients in a safe medically supervised cost-effective way and prejudice should play no part in its medical application. My bill and the petition tabled today are about taking politicians out of the medication decisions by doctors and instead allowing doctors to make medical decisions about the best options for their patients.