The Australian Scene: Medicinal Cannabis

" ... Medical marijuana, cannabis, and its constituent cannabinoids, such as THC (delta-9 tetrahydrocannabinol), were used as early as 2700 BCE in China and India and then spread worldwide to treat pain, seizure, muscle spasm, poor appetite, nausea, insomnia, asthma, depression, and menstrual cramps ... "

How should a person begin to grow in biblical wisdom as they face decisions about new drugs in the near future? Decisions like these have to be done in communities that value searching the Scriptures to understand what Christlikeness looks like, to discover the principles that should govern what a faithful Christian life looks like—going it alone is not a good idea. Doing it in community that submits itself to the authority of Scripture and the authority of the Holy Spirit is what we should be striving for.

Medicinal cannabis comes as a pill, oil, nasal spray or some other form of cannabis plant extract. It is used to relieve the symptoms of some medical conditions. Medicinal cannabis is being researched worldwide due to its potential to help a number of conditions, but its use is very highly regulated in Australia.

At 89 years old, a suicidal Olive Wraight walked into her church in Bunbury, south of Perth, and asked her congregation a compromising question: "I need medicinal cannabis. Can anyone help me?"

Despite government claims that a streamlined medicinal cannabis system has led to an increase in prescriptions, at least 100,000 people are self-medicating through the black market, outweighing legal supply in Australia by over 30 to one.

" ... the federal government granted its first license for an Australian company to grow and harvest medical marijuana. This follows Australia’s amending of the Narcotic Drugs Act 1967 to legalise the production and use of cannabis for medicinal purposes. The amendment came in February 2016, a year after the death of campaigner Daniel Haslam ... "