It’s little more than a decade since Australians were first permitted to consume medicinal cannabis without fear of being dragged through the courts.
But the story behind legalisation dates well before the signing of new laws in 2016.
And now, Lucy Haslam has detailed that story in her newly published memoir, Fragile Wings of Hope: A Mother’s Fight for Truth, Compassion, and Medicinal Cannabis.
Yet it not only tells the tale of her son, Dan, his battle with stage four bowel cancer and the subsequent campaign for the legalisation of medicinal cannabis, it delves deeper into the family’s relationship with cannabis, their initial reluctance to become involved with a then illicit drug and the “extraordinary transformation that occurred when personal experience collided with deeply held assumptions”.
Nor is Fragile Wings of Hope a “victory story” in which discrimination ended and access to potentially life-changing medicine became easy when the law changed, Haslam said.
In fact, the story of medicinal cannabis became ever more complicated, with Haslam arguing legalisation did not remove stigma, or provide access to every patient who may have benefitted.
And it certainly did not erase the grief of losing her son.
“People sometimes think the story ends when the law changes. For me, that was only one chapter,” she said. “Dan was still gone, families were still struggling and the system still had a long way to go.”
The book also tackles issues around what constitutes a medicine, and who gets to decide, how governments respond when patients challenge the law, and whether changing legislation is enough if attitudes and systems do not change with it.
Fragile Wings of Hope: A Mother’s Fight for Truth, Compassion, and Medicinal Cannabis is published this week by Queensland Book Publishers.