What would you do if your child had a terminal cancer diagnosis and the only thing helping them through the ordeal was a substance that gets you labelled as a criminal? Lucy Haslam has found herself in this situation with her 24 year old terminally ill son, Daniel. Instead of accepting the circumstances of the outdated cannabis laws in Australia, Lucy has started a petition in an effort to make a change to laws surrounding medicinal use of cannabis attracting widespread attention and media coverage with the petition currently standing at over 30,000 signatures.
Lucy was kind enough to take the time to share her families story with CultureMad.
We are just an ordinary family in an unenviable position. I know that people will judge us, but as a parent, I would like to put forward the reasons why I feel the decriminalisation of medicinal cannabis should be revisited by our State and Federal Government. For my family this is a matter of urgency.
Think about this scenario…. A terminally ill 24 year old, staggers out of the chemotherapy suite where he has just had his fortnightly treatment. This young man is my beautiful son Dan. He is deathly pale, nauseous and anxious to get home to bed. He is afflicted with bowel, liver, lung, bone and lymph cancer. The NSW Health Minister just happens to be there for an official plaque dedication ceremony at a new and very busy cancer centre. He decides that although he feels very unwell, he will make an effort and seize the opportunity to speak to her. A letter sent recently to her has not warranted a reply. He courageously approaches her and tells her he is forced to break the law to use cannabis. He explains that the cannabis relieves symptoms which previously would put him in hospital every time he had chemotherapy. Days spent lying still and quiet, being maintained only with IV fluids in a darkened hospital room, unable to eat, unable to speak, unable to move without precipitating violent vomiting. He tells the Health Minister that the cannabis allows him to now minimise his nausea, and to have an appetite so he can maintain his weight and very importantly, that cannabis oil is being used to try and kill the cancer so he will not die.
The Health Minister responds that yes she “knows all about him…… but doesn’t he realize that smoking cannabis causes lung cancer?”
How would you respond to Daniel? Would you deny him the right to control his symptoms because of draconian laws and undeserved stigma or would you see compassion prevail by recognising the scientific evidence which validates his experience and allows the well informed to make the distinction between recreational drug use and medicinal use? I implore all Australians, if you don’t know much about cannabis medicines; please take the time to learn about it from the perspective of the sick instead of relying on uninformed prejudices from the past when cannabis was hailed as the big taboo. The broad arguments against cannabis should not be applied and penalise the sick. The science is there, the evidence is there, the sick are waiting for this country to treat them with care rather than as criminals.
The evidence that cannabis oil is useful as a treatment for advanced cancer has been largely ignored because of the illegalities surrounding it. When you are 24 and have a diagnosis such as Dan’s the very possibility that there is a potential cure for your terminal disease is a form of hope that the doctors are no longer offering. Hope is a concept that is imperative to quality of life for the human spirit. The fact that cannabis is illegal is a complication but certainly not enough reason to not try to make this treatment available to him.
A NSW Senate Enquiry last year made unanimous recommendations to decriminalise cannabis medicines for the terminally ill. The NSW Health Minister has chosen to ignore those recommendations.
As a mother I am certainly not ready to give up on such dynamic and inspirational young man and I challenge the NSW Health Minister and the NSW Premier to offer Daniel and the thousands of others in the same position the opportunity to tackle their disease in whatever manner that they feel is best for them instead of turning their back on them. I implore them to stop treating families like ours as criminals. Cancer is stressful enough; it would be great to be supported by those who truly can make a difference.I am firmly guided by my conscience and will support Daniel and the sick with all my might.
Please get behind Daniel’s fight and sign the petition here and help us continue to share their story.
