Charlestown MP Jodie Harrison says it's disappointing to see the Government vote against Labor's Bill to legalise medicinal cannabis, claiming it's time for the law to change.
The Bill is aimed at protecting people with chronic pain and their carers from using or administering medicinal cannabis as a source of pain relief.
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| Charlestown MP Jodie Harrison |
"The Government should be doing everything it possibly can to make sure that people with terminal illnesses and serious illnesses that create a lot of pain can actually live with a reasonable quality of life and their decision to not support Labor's Bill is a real same for all of those people who are suffering."
Under current laws, there is no distinction between people who use cannabis recreationally and people who use it as a source of pain relief.
According to the Charlestown MP, this means that people suffering from terminal or serious medical conditions are seen as criminals.
She says Labor's Bill could have changed this by creating a legal distinction between the two groups.
"What the bill does is to make it legal for people who administer cannabis related product for the purposes of relieving a serious illness and those illnesses are spelt out very clearly in the bill. In that way, people are protected who need to use medicinal cannabis but it also means that people who are just recreational users aren't captured by the bill at all."
"It is time for the law to change and remove the unnecessary hurdles sufferers of terminal and chronic illness must jump through to access medicinal cannabis," she said.
