Dear Editor, Did you know that under the Narcotics and Misuse of Drugs Act 2004, there is a provision that would allow relief of the physical and emotional pain of the Cook Islands people, with the introduction of medicinal cannabis but the TMO, Crown Law and Customs are too inept to bring this to fruition.

Under Part 1,#4,of the Act,the Executive Council can amend the name or description of any substance, namely marijuana, if that substance is consistent with international scientific usage.

And that is exactly what has happened to marijuana.

In January of 2019, a World Health Organization Director made a series of recommendations to the United Nations to update the scope of control of medicinal cannabis and medicinal cannabis related substances.

And these recommendations are the outcome of a multi-year process conducted by an independent scientific advisory board to the WHO, based on scientific assessment of their benefits for the increased use of cannabis and its components for medical purposes and the emergence of new cannabis related pharmaceutical preparations for their use. And their findings were to have access to and availability of cannabis for medical purposes.

TMO is doing practically next to nothing to help bring in a vast multitude of medicinal cannabis products and is thereby not protecting the public's health.

Crown Law is virtually non-existent in implementing new medicinal cannabis laws and has been going in the opposite direction of the WHO findings on the use of medicinal cannabis products.

Crown Law continues with its stranglehold on medicinal cannabis users by not working with other Ministries in the Government to help bring relief to our people in so many ways.

And Customs is obviously not working with TMO and Crown Law to promote badly needed legislation and policies recognising the benefits of medicinal cannabis that would help make our borders safer to help stem the black market on marijuana that is completely off the charts because a vast majority of our people are in need of medicinal cannabis to alleviate their suffering.

It's high time the above mentioned disjointed three ministries started working in harmony to help our people instead of operating like three different fiefdoms within the Government.

Sincerely,

Steve Boggs