We Spoke To Black Market Medical Cannabis Patients Who Don't Access The
Drug Legally. Here's What They Said.
February 15 2018 By Brad Esposito - BuzzFeed News Reporter, Australia
Australian patients using medicinal cannabis
illegally say their only worry about being
arrested would be having their medicine taken
from them.
Medicinal cannabis in Australia is legal but
patients claim it is still incredibly hard to
obtain.
The Therapeutic Goods Administration
(TGA) estimates a few hundred people have
legal access to the drug, while roughly
100,000 people use the drug medicinally
through illegal means.
Currently, the pathway to accessing medicinal
cannabis is determined in part by what state or
territory you are in. Patients say it can be an
incredibly stressful and time-consuming
process, with doctors, specialists and the TGA
all getting involved.
Also, many doctors feel they do not know
enough to confidently go about prescribing
the drug.
Compassionate suppliers, growers, and
medicinal users of the plant say they continue
to fear police prosecution, especially if they
tell their stories to the press.
Late last year, a young woman who said she
juiced the plant to help her deal with her
debilitating Crohn's disease had her house
raided by police only a few weeks after
blogging about her situation.
Police allegedly seized all of her plants, which
she says were being grown by her father, who
was then taken to the police station.
He now faces a costly trial and the family is
crowdfunding to cover costs.
BuzzFeed News spoke to medicinal cannabis
users about their options and why some still
choose to access the drug from the black
market.
Juanita*, from Queensland, uses medicinal
cannabis to deal with chronic pain as a result
of injury-induced osteoarthritis.
She says the drug has changed her life. Before
discovering medicinal cannabis, Juanita was
depressed, unable to make her way up stairs
or to the bathroom without assistance.
She told BuzzFeed News that "the pain was
unbearable. I've given birth to multiple
children and I'd rather have that all one after
the other, rather than suffer that pain again."
Within a week of taking the drug, Juanita said
she was walking again.
The first time she took it she slept through the
night, uninterrupted, for the first time in two
years.
"I did not think it would work, I really did
not," she said. "I knew about cannabis...but I
didn't know about the medical side."
Juanita attempted to access the drug legally
but says she was told by her doctor not to
bother because of the exhaustive paperwork
and huge price involved.
Her doctor quoted her $1,500 per
prescription.
She currently pays $250 for three month's
supply on the black market.
Now, Juanita fears her medicine being taken
from her, or suppliers no longer being able to
produce it for others. "I'm not a pothead. I
have never been. The public seems to perceive
it as a gateway drug. A gateway drug to what?
Less pain?"
Also in Queensland, Suzette uses cannabis to
treat complications from Lyme disease.
She told BuzzFeed News
her biggest fear was
returning to a life of pain,
not the law.