Barry Soper: Political grandstanding by National on Medicinal cannabis bill is shameful

Trouble is if you leave it to the squabbling politicians chances are you're not going to get what you want.

And that's certainly been the case for those who're chronically or terminally ill and suffering unbearably, but waiting for a politician to come up with the solution to allow you to relieve the pain is like waiting for Godot.

If you are ill and want relief from the pain go and get it and if it's cannabis you want, that's obviously not difficult in this country where more than half of the adult population have tried it at some time or another.

The latest political grandstanding by National on the topic, for that's what it is, is shameful.

At the very same time Parliament's Health Select Committee was reporting its public hearing process back to Parliament on the Government's medicinal cannabis bill, National was cynically unveiling its own.

The party had nine years in Government but seemed bereft of ideas, the only decent ones came from their coalition cobber Peter Dunne and they never saw the light of day.

Now suddenly they're full of ideas, ideas they could have put before the select committee that they were sitting on.

But instead they were secretly beavering away behind the scenes and coming up with their own bill.

In reality they could have come up with the most liberal cannabis laws, not that that would happen given the arch conservative Simon Bridges is in charge, and know that they were empty vessels.

The bill they've proposed can only survive in two ways.

It could be picked up by the Government which is highly unlikely and they know it, or it could be drawn from the lucky dip in the Parliamentary ballot which is stacked up with more than 70 mostly full, frank and meaningless missives.

The cynicism of National knows no bounds on this one.

Their bill's under the name of their Whangarei MP and former doctor Shane Reti who was a member of the select committee considering the Government bill.

If he had bright ideas of making a better law, why not promote them through that process, where he knows they'd have a chance of success, rather than producing an alternative bill?

The answer's simple, they wanted to undermine the Government effort which they know will go through and be passed into law.

National missed the boat on the cannabis debate, they were up the creek without a paddle while people desperate for relief were left to fight the system.

They've now finally convinced the lawmakers with power that they're entitled to end their days with some dignity, free from the painful ravages that they should never have had to suffer.

Let's hope this legislation puts and end to it, and sooner rather than later.