Pubdate: Tue, 16 Jun 2015
Source: New Zealand Herald (New Zealand)
Copyright: 2015 New Zealand Herald
Contact:  http://www.nzherald.co.nz/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/300
Author: Phil O'Reilly

CANNABIS HYSTERIA

What is it about the word "cannabis" that drives editorial writers 
and righteous social commentators to not only suspend their 
objectivity but to lose their compassion as well? Associate Health 
Minister Pete Dunne's one-off approval of Elixinol to treat Alex 
Renton's lifethreatening seizures being a case in point.

A country that tolerates hunting deaths, recreational drownings and 
drunken carnage as the price of freedom reserves an almost hysterical 
odium for cannabis. That Elixinol is made from industrial hemp with 
less than a quarter percent of psychoactive THC is not viewed in the 
hope it just may work where other treatments have failed but as a 
stalking horse for marijuana law reform. Where the discredited 
fundamentalist "war on drugs" must be fought regardless of all costs, 
let alone the sense and humanity of it.

Phil O'Reilly, Herne Bay.
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