IT’S the Christmas gift desperate parents wished for but thought may never arrive.
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The NSW government’s announcement yesterday it would proceed with clinical medical marijuana trials for children with intractable epilepsy has the potential to transform thousands of young lives.
Amid months of furious debate about the merits of medical cannabis, the most moving and dramatic stories have flowed from the families of children with severe epilepsy.
The former Barraba woman whose son has gone from having a seizure a minute to virtually none at all; the Coffs Harbour dad whose eight-year-old girl was given up for dead by doctors but has been delivered a new lease of life from cannabis oil; the parents forced to source an illegal drug on the black market just to ensure their child has the medicine they need.
The stories were heartwrenching and real – and the government could no longer ignore them.
The trials announced yesterday will place NSW at the vanguard of medical marijuana reform in Australia.
And they will almost certainly result in meaningful change.
While some campaigners lament the fact these trials have to be conducted at all, the government must face political reality.
Powerful lobby groups like the Australian Medical Association remain an impediment to legalisation and trials are a critical way of garnering their support.
The result of the trials seem a foregone conclusion.
The weight of anecdotal evidence for marijuana helping some patients deal with the rigours of chemotherapy, appetite stimulation and seizure control is utterly incontrovertible.
On this issue, the government, in particular Premier Mike Baird, has shown something sorely lacking in modern politics – courage and real leadership.
A few short months ago, medical marijuana reform seemed almost unthinkable.
But today, we sit on the cusp of an historic change.
And none of it could have happened without ordinary people sharing their extraordinary personal stories.
It’s called democracy in action and when it works, it’s something to behold.