For Tamworth’s Lou and Lucy Haslam, that moment came amid their darkest hour.

Forced to watch their son Dan’s body being slowly ravaged by terminal bowel cancer, the Haslams stumbled upon an unlikely relief remedy – pot.

Mr Haslam, a career cop, and Mrs Haslam, a respected local businesswoman, initially resisted their son’s pleas to try the herb to deal with the crushing nausea caused by chemo.

But, feeling helpless and failed by synthetic alternatives, the Haslams finally relented.

What followed was an extraordinary turnaround in Dan’s physical and mental wellbeing after chemo.

His story has emerged as a compelling testimonial for decriminalising cannabis for terminally ill patients.

This is a middle-class family from regional NSW with no agenda except the health of a loved one – hardly your usual pro-marijuana advocates.

That two loving parents have to buy “medicine” from a drug dealer and a young man at the end of life has to risk being arrested by police is a damning indictment on the current laws.

It is simply unconscionable for a government to deny people relief from chronic pain or sickness.

Despite a NSW Senate committee last October giving bipartisan support to the decriminalisation of cannabis for the dying, the state government has steadfastly resisted supporting a bill.

The reason? Political expediency.

The government fears the community will see it as being soft on drugs.

And yet the 2007 National Drug Strategy Household Survey reported 70 per cent of respondents were in favour of legalising marijuana for medicinal purposes, while 75 per cent were in favour of further clinical trials. 

The medicinal value of cannabis has been recognised since before Christ and studies have confirmed its active ingredients can help conditions such as epilepsy, glaucoma, migraine and arthritis, provide relief from chronic pain associated with degenerative diseases and spinal injuries, and alleviate the side effects of common treatments for cancer and HIV/AIDS.

Medicinal marijuana is already legal in a swag of European countries and in more than 20 US states.

If it’s good enough for other parts of the world, for the majority of the Australian community, for the medical fraternity and for a Senate committee, it should be good enough for the NSW government.