Hillier cannabis oil producer Jenny Hallam says she had been waiting for police to raid her property
IT was a knock at the door that Jenny Hallam had been expecting for two years — the police had finally arrived to take her cannabis oil.
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IT was a knock at the door that Jenny Hallam had been expecting for two years — the police had finally arrived to take her cannabis oil.
The 44-year-old Hillier resident knew she was openly flouting the law, but said prosecution was a risk she was willing to take to help everyone from children with epilepsy to elderly cancer patients.
“It was about 9.30 in the morning and I was sitting on my couch and the police walked up to my door,” Ms Hallam said.
“I expected that they would come at some stage. I haven’t exactly hidden what I do. I met them at the door and said, ‘There is cannabis and cannabis oil on the premises, and it is used to treat people who are sick and dying, and anything that you remove from the house today could result in someone’s death’.
“Right there they could have turned around and walked away — they have the power of discretion — but they didn’t.”
Ms Hallam said she had been reported by police, but was yet to be charged and was awaiting a summons to appear in court.
Before last week’s police raid the disability pensioner was supplying two types of cannabis oil — one infused in coconut oil and a purer form extracted using alcohol — to about 100 patients around Australia.
She has never charged for the oil, and high profile recipients include Ben Oakley, who suffers from the rare neurological disorder stiff person syndrome, and Suli Peek, an eight-year-old girl who is afflicted by up to 100 seizures a day.
The parents of both Ben and Suli claim the oil has saved their children’s lives, and Ms Hallam said she had grave concerns for all the people who have had their oil supply cut off.
Ms Hallam said she still didn’t know what she would be charged with, given that she didn’t cultivate any of the cannabis (it was all donated) and that she never charged anyone for her oil.
“The word ‘trafficking’ has been mentioned because of the amount they seized, and that can be up to 20 years’ in jail, but, to be honest, I’m not that worried about going to jail.
“If you have a choice of watching people die or possibly going to jail, what would you do?”
Ms Hallam discovered cannabis oil while searching for an alternative to the morphine and other drugs she had been prescribed for her own fibromyalgia and chronic pain.
She said: “I got down to 38kg. Fibromyalgia basically turns your touch receptors into pain receptors, so anything that touches me causes pain. It was head-to-toe pain.”
Ms Hallam said after discovering how well it worked for her own ailments she began supplying a few other people, and through word of mouth a network of people desperate to obtain the oil sprung up.
“I’ve probably helped 200 people, and I currently have around 100 on the list, and maybe 200 people waiting,” she said. “They don’t show me the waiting list because I just stress too much.”
She said she was stunned that it was legal to prescribe highly addictive drugs such as morphine and other opiates while cannabis oil remained in legal limbo.
“Look what morphine does to people — it wipes them out,” Ms Hallam, who had to watch her own father die in pain from cancer, said.
“At the end of someone’s life when they want to spend time with their family they’re completely out of it. I’ve had many people on cannabis oil at the end and they’ve had amazing quality time with their family.
“I’ve heard the most beautiful stories of people passing away on cannabis oil — their family is around them, they put their favourite song on and they pass away, lucid and aware. It’s a peaceful and kind death.”
Ms Hallam said she had been buoyed by the overwhelming support she had received from around the world following the police raid.
She said that even conservative sections of the community (including her own religious mother, who she said was proud of what she’d done) were now willing to admit that cannabis oil was an effective medication for a number of ailments. Governments, she said, needed to catch up.
“What could be done, right away, with a stroke of the pen, is to end prohibition,” Ms Hallam said.
“We could have a tiered system where local government, state government and federal government could all be making money from this, and South Australia could have a new industry — and god knows we need it. It could put this state back on the map again.
“I’ve been trying to get an appointment with (Health Minister) Jack Snelling for two years. He keeps referring me to the Minister for Substance Abuse, Leesa Vlahos. It’s a health issue, not a drug abuse issue. I’m insulted by that and I refuse to go and see her.”
■ There will be a rally in the city in support of Ms Hallam this Saturday at 10am on the steps of Parliament House.