Government's cannabis plans include legal defence for terminal patients who use
400,000 New Zealanders are using cannabis on a yearly basis, but about 42 per cent of those are using it for medicinal purposes
Stuff (New Zealand)
Wednesday, December 20, 2017
Wednesday, December 20, 2017
The Government will not be legalising the medicinal use of cannabis in New Zealand, but it will allow terminal patients caught growing cannabis to use their illness as a defence to avoid prosecution. New legislation introduced by the Government will also introduce a medicinal cannabis scheme to enable access to medical-grade cannabis products and remove cannabidiol from the schedule of controlled drugs. That meant eventually, patients with a prescription would be able to access medicinal cannabis products at a pharmacy. That scheme would take time to implement, but as soon as the law was passed patients with less than 12 months to live, who had been caught using the raw form of cannabis, would have a legal defence.
