It's a Saturday morning and in the Brother Marcellin room of Ponsonby's Saint Columba Centre there is an air of intrigue and unity.
This is Hemp Medicine 101, a one-day course run by The Hemp Foundation NZ to explain the facts and undo the fiction about the ancient and controversial plant.
The speaker is Tadhg Stopford, Grey Lynn local and founder of the Hemp Foundation. Fourteen months ago, he became dismayed with the government's sluggishness and misinformation around medical cannabis. Motivated by his mother Kerri who has multiple sclerosis, a condition potentially treatable by raw dietary cannabinoids, Tadhg set out on an tireless and personal campaign to learn as much as possible about the issue and spread that truth through the medical industry and beyond.
He's also a high-school teacher, and certainly has the demeanour of one as he 'contextualises' the course, weaving the history of the hemp industry's former glory, its groundless prohibition in the 1930s, and the corporate interests that for years have kept it starved of sunlight and water.
However, once hailed as the 'billion dollar crop' hemp is getting its time in the sun once more. It grows incredibly quickly, stores four times more carbon than pine and because of its versatile fibre, has literally tens of thousands of sustainable commercial applications, including a substitute for petrochemicals. Demand is expected to triple in the next three years with China calling it a strategic resource and growing 1.3 million hectares.
But perhaps the most important aspect of the plant is that it is a rich storehouse of the cannabinoids the human body needs to regulate its own health. It therefore has phenomenal potential as both food and medicine and, around the world, laws are relaxing to allow for its medicinal use.
In New Zealand, the new Government has committed to providing access to medical cannabis for patients who are terminally ill or in chronic pain. But they remain expensive and largely unavailable.
"If the Government is serious about improving things for Kiwis," Tadhg says, "then it needs to understand the science and the opportunities."
Science plays a crucial role in the Hemp Foundation's mission. The team itself includes a group of GPs and the course covers a vast body of fastidious medical research.
At the front of the class, Tadhg explains how all animals with a backbone share an ECS (Endogenous Cannabinoid System) which uses cannabinoids as 'messengers of health' to regulate critical aspects of our mental and physical health including bone growth, healing and memory.
If our bodies don't make enough cannabinoids, we become sick and the ECS needs to be supported with non-psychoactive foods like raw cannabis. This does not get you high, however, because the psychoactive part of cannabis (THC) is only created by the application of heat. As the course mantra goes: it's about getting people healthy, not high.
Despite the importance of the ECS, surveys conducted by the Hemp Foundation found that many New Zealand GPs had no idea that it existed. At the General Practice Medical Conference and Exhibition in Rotorua, 69% of the 180 doctors in attendance did not know about the ECS. At the same conference, however, 96% thought plant cannabis should be used and researched in New Zealand and 89% felt cannabis use was a health issue, not a criminal one.
"This data," explains Tadhg "shows that our medical schools and governments are ill informed and our cannabis polices badly reasoned. We are being denied opportunities for health and prosperity by laws that are not based on science, that are not patient centred, and by bureaucrats who seem opposed to innovation."
But it isn't simply the laws that are preventing hemp and medical cannabis from thriving. Because of its longstanding illegality and decades of societal conditioning, it is difficult to break the unconscious bias of both practitioners and the public.
"The stigma is enormous," Tadhg says "and many people find it difficult to confront and change beliefs they've always held."
There is certainly no stigma here at Hemp Medicine 101, especially when the course shifts up a gear and Tadhg hands over to the foundations educator, GP Dr Ben Jansen who begins explaining the more complex aspects of cannabis on human physiology.
Even the non-doctors are taking notes, keen to get as much insight into the technical details as possible. A family of three - a married couple and their adult son came here because of the father's Crohn's disease, which, they say, has been helped immensely by medical cannabis.
More people like this are starting to do their own research and seek medical alternatives; something that Tadhg insists is essential for change to occur. "We live in a democracy," he says "and we must have a bottom up movement."
The Hemp Foundation intends to grow that movement and is running three more Hemp Medicine 101 courses in January, February and April. Meanwhile, Tadhg will continue to engage medical professionals and the public with the aim of spreading awareness and gathering support.
In an increasingly sick world desperate for more sustainable resources, it seems to be only a matter of time before the 'billion dollar crop' returns to its former glory. But the window of opportunity is closing fast, and it's up to New Zealand to decide if it wants to sow the seeds for a healthy and prosperous future. (MICK ANDREWS)
www.thehempfoundation.org.nz
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