New Zealand's first medical cannabis charity want to help pay for patients to get legally available medical cannabis.
Charity wants to help pay for legal medical cannabis spray Sativex Photo: AFP
A legal medical cannabis spray Sativex, which costs about $1000 a month, is not government-funded.
The coordinator of Medical Cannabis Awareness New Zealand, Shane le Brun, said it would start by helping pay for 10 patients.
"Our motivation is to do what we can in the here and now, rather than wait a few years...because people are dying in the meantime.
"One of the 10 patients we were hoping to fundraise for actually died last week on the day they were supposed to start Sativex," Mr le Brun said.
The charity would also offer an American course on medical cannabis that could be used by nurses, GPs and anaesthetists in this country, he said.