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Dylan Kelly knows how he will vote in the next cannabis referendum, and he knows how his mother Helen would have voted too.
The 28-year-old saw his mother, former Union Council President Helen Kelly, turn to the black market to buy cannabis when she was diagnosed with terminal lung cancer in February 2015.
It was the only thing that gave her relief and helped her sleep at night, she said. Stuff before his death.
Speaking before the referendum, Dylan Kelly said Stuff the drug meant that her mother was lucid until her last moments, something that would not have been possible if she had managed her pain legally with morphine.
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Supplied / Stuff
Dylan Kelly in Paris with his mother Helen Kelly, former president of CTU, in 2015. She died in 2016 after being diagnosed with terminal lung cancer and was campaigning for medical cannabis.
“His options were essentially not to exist as a functional human,” Kelly said.
But using medical cannabis meant she was “lucid, caring, talkative and defiant” until the very end.
“That [cannabis] Honestly, it was the difference between losing her when she was diagnosed and losing her when she died, ”he said.
The cannabis legalization and control bill, which will be put to a referendum in conjunction with the general elections next month, would legalize the use of cannabis for recreational use with the stated goal of reducing “cannabis-related harm to individuals, families / whānau and communities “.
But the issue of legalization has divided public opinion, raising questions about the impact legalized cannabis could have on violent crime, teen drug use, and car accidents. Polls show that support and opposition for the bill are locked in a draw.
Stuff
Helen Kelly, former president of the Council of Unions, retired from office when she was diagnosed with terminal cancer.
The New Zealand Medical Association, for example, is one of many organizations that oppose the legislation. You have said that cannabis causes a variety of health and social damages.
Instead, the association calls for initiatives to reduce social inequalities that increase the risk of harm from drug use and a significant investment in education and treatment programs.
The Drug Foundation, which supports the bill, has argued that criminalization did nothing to prevent cannabis use and the bill would make it easier to control cannabis use.
Kelly can see both arguments, but said that cannabis is already in use, while the current legalization of medical cannabis was too limited for many people requiring relief.
“I can see the arguments for and against and there is no perfect solution for drugs,” he said.
The right to use medicinal cannabis to combat pain and nausea was an issue her mother campaigned for, even while undergoing chemotherapy.
“What Mom was doing was deceiving society and the legal system.
“The implication was to come to my house and accompany me to the car with my cane and my bald head from chemotherapy,” he said.
His mother also raised the issue of racism and justice in cannabis use, and Maori are more likely to be convicted and go to jail than Pākehā for being caught with marijuana, he said.
It’s a subject that Kelly is also passionate about.
“I’m just trying to be her avatar and use what light she has left to defend what she would have represented.
“So if people wonder what I would do, they would vote for it,” he said.
The referendum on the legalization of cannabis will be held in the general elections on October 17.
