Darren Coyne
The demand for black market medicinal marijuana has become so intense the Nimbin Hemp Embassy is urging people to ‘do it yourself’.
Embassy volunteers say they are fielding calls from across Australia on a daily basis from people desperate to get hold of either tinctures or oils to treat conditions ranging from cancer to epilepsy.
With medical cannabis advocate Tony Bower due to face court again this month, any remaining supplies of tincture are being reserved for the people, many of them children, that he has been supplying for free.
The Embassy has been selling ‘how to’ books for $2, with the proceeds going to Mr Bower’s legal defence.
Hemp Embassy volunteers Vanessa Toms and Donna Star told Echonetdaily that they were receiving up to 10 calls a day, with many more coming into the embassy.
‘The hardest thing is saying no to a parent with a sick child,” Ms Toms said.
‘I just had a lady in tears on the phone who is driving up from Victoria to Nimbin to buy some buds to make tincture because you can’t get decent mull in Melbourne, it’s all hydro,’ she said.
‘We have more than a 1000 people on the waiting list just for Tony’s product.’
Meanwhile, some local growers are attempting to meet the demand.
Some tincture is available in a few outlets, while others are defying police pressure to continue to supply the product over the internet.
Just recently Australian Federal Police arrested a person trading as The Don Medicinal Cannabis at Gold Coast airport.
Police confiscated 110 grams, or $11,000, worth of oil.
The 44-year-old is due to appear in Coolangatta Court on 8 September.
Meanwhile, almost 200,000 people have signed a petition calling on the NSW Govt to decriminalize medicinal cannabis, and a bill is expected to be tabled this month.
Coinciding with that, Lucy Haslam, whose son Dan is fighting terminal cancer, has started a fundraiser to conduct an advertising blitz to ‘ensure every MP knows how important it is for them to step up and change the laws’.
Premier Mike Baird has come out publicly saying that he would support the bill, but has expressed concerns about supply.
A Nimbin grower who asked to remain anonymous told Echonetdaily that there was plenty of expertise amongst local growers, who could be licensed to supply quality product.
The grower gave Echonetdaily a demonstration of how to make a particular type of tincture for pain relief, but he cautioned that there were a number of ways to make the product so that it dealt with specific illnesses or diseases.
Nimbin’s Hemp Embassy president Michael Balderstone also recently called on the government not to ignore the network and experience of Northern Rivers growers.
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