FROM a Tamworth cafe to the United Nations (UN) International Court of Justice, Australia’s medical marijuana movement is starting to look more like a “grassroots” revolution.
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The latest tack will see more than 100 Aussie parents take a class action to the UN claiming they are being discriminated against by local authorities for treating their children with cannabis medicine.
Behind closed doors, hundreds of desperate parents across the nation are sourcing medical marijuana on the black market to treat their children’s intractable epilepsy.
Clinical trials are scant but the anecdotal evidence is incontrovertible.
Cannabis tinctures, a form of marijuana oil with little or none of the drug’s psychoactive properties, are dramatically reducing the number of seizures and increasing the quality of life of many young epileptics.
Children like three-year-old Cooper Batten, who went from having a seizure every minute to having virtually none at all following his use of a tincture, is one of many cases.
No one has a greater stake in a child’s welfare than a parent.
And these parents are not lying.
They are so convinced the tinctures are keeping their children alive, they are breaking the law to source them.
In light of such compelling prima facie evidence, it is incumbent on governments across Australia to put a moratorium on prosecuting these parents until clinical trials are conducted.
We should always demand rigorous testing of drugs on children, but we should also expect, in lieu of those tests being completed, parents be given some latitude in how they treat their loved ones.
Thus far, children with epilepsy have been virtually ignored in the proposed medical marijuana bills for NSW.
There is nothing as natural as a plant and there is nothing as natural as a parent wanting the best for their child.
It’s only natural, then, that these parents be allowed to do what comes so naturally to them.
