Welcome spotlight on medicinal cannabis

IT WAS very refreshing to read your feature about medicinal cannabis in your newspaper (News, June 6).

All too often, discussion about the use and benefits of the drug has been hi-jacked by dogma and soundbites, often ill-informed and rarely adding any value to the debate.

Although there is growing recognition that the prescribed use of cannabis can help MS and other sufferers, there appears to be total intransigence on the part of our government to pursue any thorough investigation into this issue.

If the ever-increasing reports of convictions and seizures of cannabis plants are anything to go by, it is apparent that this is happening anyway and the existing legislation is doing very little to prevent it. It is also tying up considerable garda resources. But there is a greater danger and that is the longer we refuse to seriously address the “problem” of cannabis use in a meaningful and mature way, the more difficult it will be to drag this country out of the unregulated black market drug pit it is allowing itself to fall into.

Congratulations to the Irish Examiner for bringing this issue to the fore again in such an informative article. Let’s hope that this time it will be matched by a similar response from our Government.

Richard Tindale

Sneem

Co Kerry