Editorial: Let doctors decide on medicinal cannabis

OPINION: The call grows louder to relax the laws around "medicinal cannabis". Union leader Helen Kelly, who has terminal cancer, has given it new voice with her own forceful appeal to the Government.

"If a doctor says I would benefit from this, then who is Peter Dunne to decide whether I will or not?" Kelly asks.

Good question. As the law stands, Dunne, the associate health minister, must give his blessing before any cannabis-related treatment can be used on a patient in New Zealand, even the sole such drug already approved here.

He should not have this power; it should belong to doctors and medical authorities, who can decide whether a drug is safe and effective, just as they do with almost every other drug.

Think of morphine, for instance, which is more dangerous than cannabis – the minister rightly does not get to toss up whether a person in...

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