You get nothing more than Good Day, sir. We will never see eye to eye and I don't care to waste any more time with you.

Hey Ben, calm down. You've called us concern trolls and now dissing us as fake liberals.

We have genuine problems with the bill as written. We've articulated our problems with the bill and you disagree. Leave the snide insinuations out of it.

I…

Me too, but that is not going to happen so I would not oppose this bill just to prove some obscure point about how it doesn't go far enough, any more than I would oppose a civil unions bill…

That allows the government to keep up the pretence of prohibition whilst not involving a doctor in…

Which is my point as well. Remove the medical profession from this bill and I'd be happy.

Oh and your claims of efficacy are unproven as are your claims of non-toxicity. Both things that really need large scale clinical trials – unless…

Simply legalising pot (and therefore pot abuse) to a society that already heavily abuses alcohol will do nothing for the out of control…

Replacing one charade with another which directly involves the medical profession may not be a good solution.

The idea that a…

I'm not feeling it. Sorry man, I just can't internalize looking after the medical profession so hard that I can buy what amounts to a concern troll against an incremental movement in…

A Facebook friend was encouraged last week to take CBD oil for the pain from fibromyalgia and spinal arthritis. (I confess, I didn't exactly discourage her either.)

She's in the UK so the oil was unregulated and fairly easy to to obtain. So she got some.…

Well, if you wanted to do evidence-based medicine, you'd start by taking your crop, maybe making cannabis oil using the usual process, then assay it for active ingredients and then standardise it by dilution…

Situation: Labour, Act and the Maori Party on board for the first reading.

NZ First likely to forbid a conscience vote (you can't NZF MPs being seen to think for themselves) and Dunne undecided.

That leaves the votes of 12 National MPs…

I never said any different. Just that considering the way controlled trials about pain relief work, by treating as the response the subjective evaluations of…

And I agree.

I really think there are…

Yes, it's incremental. It's a hard sell…

I'm happy to give them the choice about it, yes. Very much so. They know a lot more about health than I do. The law would not force any doctor to prescribe it. But it would enable…

Again – personally I'd just legalise it.

But here's the thing for me, at the moment the evidence for medical benefits from cannabinoids is mostly shite. What is being proposed is functionally legalising based on dubious medicinal claims and putting doctors…

If they're convinced the underlying treatment doesn't really have much notable harm, and they believe there is a case for it in pain treatment. They can recommend a delivery method that is not smoking it, and…

Yeah no question about that and I don't think you'd see any issue from doctors.

if they're treating something like say chronic epilepsy rather than cancer pain. Many may opt to avoid it.

The way it…

The harm-benefit equation needs to be properly weighed up against other common options like opiods. In terminal conditions, withholding treatment because of potential long-term harms does not make sense.

But yes, the lack of dose consistency…

If you want Doctors to prescribe a drug, even a natural product drug, then you need to control production, establish quality and safety standards, set up a regulatory authority to manage testing and all the bureaucracy that goes with any other drug.…

But a look at what he actually said on The Nation suggests it was more about voting maths.

I suspect he's still wrong, at least on the calculation of the public mood.…

Reduced inflammation through topical treatment sounds interesting, and comparatively easy to make oneself, if allowed to grow sufficient amounts of the plant material.

Hmmm ... I can't see that getting through.

I’m very, very curious how “non-psychoactive cannabis plants” is something that can possibly be controlled in…

I'm very, very curious how "non-psychoactive cannabis plants" is something that can possibly be controlled in the wild, since the people cultivating it are…

Oh, I already know the mighty Huhana :-)

Massively missing the point of course – it's not about being a stoner, pretend or otherwise – but on the heels of English's "I'll discuss it with caucus" response (after flatly ruling out voting for Seymour's bill)…