'Let's change the laws': NSW opposition submitting medical cannabis bill to help chronic sufferers and carers
There's new hope for chronic pain sufferers who rely on medicinal cannabis to ease their symptoms.
Seven News can reveal a bill to establish a register for them and their carers will go before the state parliament this week meaning they will no longer be forced to break the law if it passes.
Ben Oakley is one sufferer who faces pain all too often.
"I'm looking pretty grey, I'm not moving very well," he told 7 News on a "not particularly good" day.
Ben has "stiff person" syndrome, which causes fits of sharp, debilitating pain.
Medicinal cannabis does help with the chronic pain, but he breaks the law using it – as does his father who buys it.
"The restrictions are still way too prohibitive this should be accessible for anyone who needs it," Michael Oakley said.
"We're talking about a herb. A herb which hasn't been responsible for a single death."
Police can exercise compassion for medicinal cannabis users if they have a terminal illness, but that means thousands of epilepsy sufferers and people like Ben are forced to break the law.
Last month 7 News revealed the frustration with the limited access and slow progress of medical trials, prompting Opposition Leader Luke Foley to take up the fight.
"There ought to be the political will here," Mr Foley said.
"Why on earth should these people who already suffer so much live in fear of the long arm of the law?"
The opposition will this week bring a bill before parliament with the hope of creating a registry for the ill and their carers.
The register would protect suffering users from prosecution and hopefully give them one less thing to worry about.
"Let's change the laws," Mr Foley said. "Let's do it straight away. My offer to the premier is let's do it together."
The move has given frustrated campaigners like Lucy Haslam hope who see it as "long overdue".
"This has been dragging on for a very long time now," said the mother who watched her son Dan suffer through bowel cancer until his death
The new health minister, Brad Hazzard, said he would work to help the terminally ill.
