"My father lives with crippling pain that could be stopped. But the law won’t allow it."

Many Australians live with crippling pain that could be stopped. But the law won’t allow it.

Imagine living in constant, unbearable pain. The kind of pain that sends white fog in front of your eyes and makes it difficult to concentrate on anything else. Searing pain.

If someone offered you a small relief, wouldn’t you take it?

What if it was illegal?

When it comes to medical marijuana, this is the dilemma faced by thousands of families.

Mine is one of them.  My dad is one of the people whose life and comfort relies on his access to cannabis.

He has been suffering from the debilitating symptoms of an auto-immune disease for close to 15 years. The pain he experiences has been described by neurologists as “unbearable” and impossible to manage through painkillers alone. Many people who suffer from symptoms like his don’t find any relief using everyday pain medication. Only heavy-duty drugs like Endone cut through the white noise and make life more bearable. But anyone who has taken Endone knows that constant, habitual use is not recommended or ideal.

When he first found respite using medicinal marijuana it was like the clouds cleared, he got his life back. Everything became more manageable.

No one is being hurt by my dad’s treatment, he’s not peddling pot to youths on the streets, or forcing our family to smoke bongs with him. He is just treating his illness using the most efficacious method he’s found so far.

Read more: 50,000 people don’t think this dad deserved to be arrested. Do you?

The idea that he could be thrown in jail for that is completely ridiculous and cruel.

This is the same nightmare Victorian parents Cassie Batten and Rhett Wallace are currently living. Their son Cooper, 4, contracted bacterial meningitis when he was just four weeks old. He was left with severe brain damage, epilepsy and cerebral palsy.

Desperate to find relief for their son, Cooper’s parents began treating him with cannabis oil, a natural, low dose cannabinoid-derived medicine, which some patients have found extremely effective for reducing the occurrence of seizures.

They saw instant results. They claim the oil reduced the severity of his fits and helped with his pain, too.

Related: When the only thing that will help your child, could land you in prison.

However, medical cannabis oil is made from a very specific breed of plant, and the family’s provider has run out, meaning that six weeks ago, after his treatment was halted, Cooper’s seizures returned with a ferocious vengeance.

“He wasn’t himself — we knew something wasn’t right,” Batten told the Herald Sun.

“He started to have smaller fevers and then he wasn’t coming out of them, he was unresponsive … he was going blue.”

This four-year-old is again subjected to the torment his parents had under control, all because the Australian government continues to drag its feet when it comes to legalising the use of medical marijuana.

For children with epilepsy, patients living with cancer, and many other people suffering serious illness, cannabis if their only option when other pharmaceutical drugs don’t work. It’s not a curative drug, but it’s proven to be highly effective in pain and symptom management.

Yet, it remains illegal in Australia, even though various countries around the world (including over 20 states in the US) have legalised it’s use for medical purposes.

Read more: Meet Nonna Marijuana: The 91-year-old granny/pot chef.

Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews has promised to legalise the drug, but this is still months away as laws cannot be changed until the Victorian Law Reform Commission delivers a report on the issue – which may not happen until August.

In NSW, Premier Mike Baird has agreed to start a clinical trial of medical cannabis, but it’s likely it won’t begin until next year.

In the meantime, Cooper, and thousands of other patients who rely on the drug, will be forced to go without or use illegal methods of acquiring it. It’s mind-blowingly unfair – to take something away from these people who desperately need it, just because there are piles of red tape that need to be dealt with first.

And various medical bodies agree. The Cancer Council writes this on its website, “Cancer Council NSW acknowledges that cannabis may be of medical benefit to cancer patients where conventional treatments are unsuccessful.”

Epilepsy Action Australia CEO Carol Ireland has previously told The ABC that she hopes Australian medical trials happen quickly because the early evidence for the use of cannabis in treating aggressive forms of epilepsy is extremely positive.

So come on, Australia. Do we need to force Cooper’s parents watch him suffer unnecessarily? Do we need to make my dad’s last years painful and bleak?

Are we not able to grant ill people, like my father, this small reprieve?

I think we can, and must. And it needs to happen today.