We need to be thinking about affordability for our people—it can't be only for the rich because that's what it is at the moment."
Last December, the New Zealand government introduced legislation that allows patients with terminal illnesses to legally grow and use their own cannabis. But that doesn’t go far enough for cannabis activist Maki Herbert, who wants the law expanded to cover chronic pain so that people like herself don’t have to turn to the black market anymore to get marijuana.
“The law sucks,” she recently told NewsHub. “They’re just making criminals out of us.”
People suffering from chronic pain in New Zealand do have some access to medical cannabis, but Herbert says the legal option is hard to get and simply unaffordable for many patients: “A lot of our people can’t afford the $1200, $1400 for a spray. We need to be thinking about affordability for our people—it can’t be only for the rich because that’s what it is at the moment.”
Herbert has been producing her own homegrown medications for some time now. She uses her products both to manage her own symptoms of chronic pain and to help treat others in her community with similar problems. This is all illegal under current New Zealand law, but Herbert holds strong saying, “I believe in what I’m doing and there’s a whole lot of other people who are like me, believe in what we’re doing.”
Hopefully the government realizes that and changes the law before Herbert develops chronic legal trouble.
By James McClure – Civilized
