Support for the legalisation of medical marijuana in Australia is reportedly clocking up numbers in the Senate, according to The Sydney Morning Herald today.
A report on the bill is soon to be delivered in the Senate on August 10, after being initially lodged late last year.
One of the bill’s biggest supporters, Greens leader Richard Di Natale, posted on Facebook today to express his support, and urge Parliament to do the same.
“This bill is about giving people access to medicine that provides relief from severe pain and suffering. There is already overwhelming evidence for the efficacy of medicinal cannabis for conditions such as intractable nausea and muscle spasms. This is legislation that the whole parliament can own. And hopefully it’s a bill that the whole parliament can vote for.”
The tables have gradually been turning, however, following Prime Minister Tony Abbott‘s public support of medical marijuana in September last year. “If a drug is needed for a valid medicinal purpose though and is being administered safely there should be no question of its legality,” Tony Abbott wrote, “And if a drug that is proven to be safe abroad is needed here it should be available.”
On 420 this year, local activist Jesse Willesee blazed it on the steps of Sydney’s Town Hall in protest of the current illegal status of marijuana – for recreational and medical use.
