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Mario Ambrosini
In a push to ensure cannabis becomes a legal pain-relief option for
those struggling with life-threatening illnesses, the Inkatha Freedom Party is
ready to whittle down the Medical Innovation Bill, which was tabled by late IFP
MP Mario Ambrosini as a private member’s bill.
IFP chief whip Narend Singh says getting the proposals into law
would be “a living legacy” to Ambrosini, the long-standing MP and confidante of
IFP leader Prince Mangosuthu Buthelezi.
A terminally ill Ambrosini, who was battling lung cancer, tabled
the bill in Parliament in February 2014 and made an impassioned plea to
President Jacob Zuma and the government to decriminalise marijuana for medical
purposes during a debate of Zuma’s state of the nation that month.
He revealed: “I was supposed to die many months ago. I am here
because I had the courage of seeking alternatives ... in Italy in the form of
bicarbonate of soda and here in South Africa in the form of cannabis, marijuana,
dagga. It is a crime against humanity not to allow this,” he added.
The bill, which is also known as the “Ambrosini Bill” sought to
allow doctors to administer innovative unproven, but harmless, cancer treatments
in cases where other treatments cannot provide a cure and on the basis of the
patient’s informed consensus, thereby shielding doctors from common law
liability and medical profession requirements.
The bill would allow the minister of health to authorise, establish
and resource one or more pilot, innovative cancer treatment centres where
doctors would be allowed to act in terms of the above. It also called for the
government to decriminalise and liberalise cannabis for medical treatment and
industrial use.
Responding to Ambrosini’s plea, Zuma said: “I was touched to see
the man I have known and worked with for more than 20 years in this condition. I
have asked the minister of health to look into this matter.”
Ambrosini took his life in August 2014.
Over two years since the bill was tabled, there has been very
little progress in terms of its processing in Parliament, according to Singh, to
whom the bill was transferred so he could present it to the health portfolio
committee.
Singh told parliamentary journalists yesterday that the committee
held a number of meetings where oral and written evidence was given by those who
supported the bill and those who opposed it including representatives of the
medical research council, medicines control council and a few doctors who spoke
about the harmful effects of marijuana on children.
“They mentioned that it was a gateway drug and the use of the drug
could seriously impair the children’s ability to think properly and would move
them on to other drugs,” he said.
The IFP and the governing ANC entered into bilateral negotiations
about the bill, and the ANC was keen to see the bill being passed or legislation
being passed that would allow the use of marijuana or cannabis products for
palliative care, according to Singh.
But the parties were also awaiting a pronouncement in April this
year by the United Nations on whether marijuana could be approved globally for
medicinal use. The world body did not approve it.
“We feel as the IFP that the bill is being held back because of the
number of elements that are contained in the bill, elements which include the
use for medical purposes, use for recreational purposes, its use for religious
purposes and its use in the industry and we now are saying the time has come –
two years after the bill was placed on the table that we need to just focus on
the use of cannabis products for medical purposes,” Singh said.
He said there was reluctance about the use of marijuana, especially
its harmful effects on children.
“We have to take the emotion of the harmful effects out of this and
bring it down to the pain and suffering that people with life-threatening
diseases go through.”
Singh said they were prepared to drop the three other platforms and
whittle down the focus of the bill to its medical side only.
“We cannot allow this bill to be dragged on for as long as it has
dragged on because millions of people out there require alternative forms of
ensuring that pain and suffering can be alleviated in one way or the other,” he
added.
“Even if it’s a one-line bill ... we are prepared that should go
through in the portfolio committee,” he said.
