Danuiel still denied his medicine

Norml News 1995 Autumn

Danuiel Clark's health and well-being, are being sacrificed by a government too scared to do the right thing.

Danuiel achieved notoriety last year after NORML News ran a story about his use of marijuana as a medicine to help with his quadriplegia. TV showed him applying to the associate Minister of Health, Maurice Williamson, for the right to use cannabis legally. Now after a lengthy wait, his application has been turned down.

But Danuiel hasn't given up yet - in fact he's just beginning. And the response to his application has just made him angry.

"(Williamson) didn't really look at the issue" Danuiel says. "He just skimmed the surface so that he didn't have to make a real decision. If he got right into it, he'd have to say yes".

The documents on the decision, that Danuiel received after applying under the Official Information Act, do seem rather odd. Mr Williamson seems to have been more interested in consulting Police and Customs officers than medical experts.

"They are asking misinformed people for an informed view on something they don't know anything about" says Danuiel, angry that the decision on his application for medical marijuana was not made on a medical basis.

He says that the government has created a catch 22 situation, where they say they don't have enough evidence from clinical trials to authorise cannabis use for medical conditions, but can't generate the evidence needed because they won't allow anyone to use it. Danuiel has stated repeatedly that he is willing to undergo trials. The only medical opinion in the documents relating to his application, from the Department of Orthopaedic and Musculoskeletal Medicine at Christchurch School of Medicine, also suggests support for doing the kind of trials that would be needed.

But Maurice Williamson continues to hide behind smokescreens. In the letter advising Danuiel's doctor that approval would not be granted, Mr Williamson states that while there is provision in the Misuse of Drugs Act for prescribing cannabis under Ministerial approval "there is no precedent for approving the medical use of cannabis plant". Given that Danuiel's is the first proper application to be received for this excemption, that is hardly surprising!

"See, they won't say yes, but they don't exactly say no either. They just pussyfoot around saying 'you need to do this, you need to do that'," comments Danuiel.

The decision on medical marijuana applications has been delegated by Mr Williamson to Dr Bob Boyd, the Manager of the Therapeutics section of the Ministry of Health. At present Danuiel is waiting on a letter from a medical specialist to send to Dr Boyd. He wants to know what still needs to be addressed for the application to proceed. As far as Danuiel and his doctor are concerned all of the criteria for application have been fulfilled.

He is also asking Dr Boyd why Police and Customs were consulted over the application, given that they are not relevant to his condition or the therapeutic value of cannabis. Thirdly he suggests that, given that so many people use marijuana anyway, what is wrong with allowing a couple of people to legally use marijuana if it substantially improves the quality of their lives?

Since the publicity over his application Danuiel has been contacted by other people wanting to apply to use marijuana legally. Their conditions include nervous system disorders, severe back injury and multiple sclerosis. Danuiel says that he tells anyone wanting to make an application to get their doctor to apply on their behalf and to clearly state the side effects of their prescribed medication and why they are unacceptable to them and their doctor.

"Basically it feels like it's taken a long time to get nothing done. But you have to go through the r ed tape. Sometimes it looks like the only way it will go through is when it is decriminalised. I tell everyone - you don't have to be frontline but you do need to support the cause. The amount of people I hear say 'I don't need to do anything, I've never been busted'. But you need to know your rights. You need to join NORML."