It seems both incongruous and incomprehensible that Australian governments of all stripes continue to blacklist hemp seeds as food.

This nation now sits on the brink of historic medical marijuana reform, yet lawmakers’ inability to reflect community views and see the bleeding obvious threatens to derail it.

Fact: Australia is one of the few countries in the world where hemp seeds are not legal to sell as food.

Fact: A Food Standards Australia New Zealand investigation concluded “hemp seeds do not have any psychoactive properties”, they were highly nutritious and there were no safety concerns around consumption.

Fact: Hemp seeds are considered a “super food” across the globe.

Yet in the middle of an obesity epidemic, when health nuts gobble activated almonds and kale like M&Ms, state and federal governments remain unconvinced of the merits of hemp seeds.

What more evidence could they possibly need?

NSW Agriculture Minister Katrina Hodgkinson, who chaired last year’s Council of Australian Governments’ National Forum on Food Regulation, appears completely out of step on the issue, saying last July that legalising hemp seeds could send a message to the community that marijuana is ok.

By extension of this logic, treating patients with morphine and Oxycontin must also be giving a tacit green light to heroin use.

Our politicians are denying people a healthy food and making criminals of those, like Tamworth’s Haslam family, that choose to buy it anyway.

Millions of Australians have already shown they can make the distinction between recreational and medicinal marijuana.

It’s a pity those we elect to represent us don’t seem as ready to make the same distinction.