Robert Celt
New Member
The summer before he got sick, Nelson teen Alex Renton grew his first and only cannabis plants with his mother Rose, in a half-barrel in the garden. She'd told him no, originally — it wasn't worth it. She'd seen how cannabis convictions had ruined the lives of others.
But her oldest son was nothing if not determined — he felt strongly that medicinal cannabis should be available to all. He would follow his mum around with a laptop, telling her she had to read what he'd discovered, and when he turned 18 he voted for the Cannabis Party, believing a coalition might mean a change in drug law. Growing a plant shouldn't be illegal, he thought — and anyway, look at the harm alcohol caused amongst people his age.
Eventually Rose relented. "He was stubborn as hell," she says. "Never rude, just quietly determined." She thought growing marijuana would be good for a laugh. They planted several, and they grew like, well, weeds, and she could no longer keep them camouflaged. They took the iron off the shed roof and installed clearlite instead, and the plants grew vigorously in the filtered sunlight until the end of their life cycle.
Alex, a strapping rugby player raised on natural remedies and passionate about medicinal cannabis, couldn't legally take it if he got sick. In April last year he was felled by a string of epileptic seizures that conventional medicine couldn't cure. Rose and Alex's sister Jessie, 21, battled Wellington Hospital and the Government to allow him to be treated with a medical cannabidiol oil, Elixinol. After 66 days in the hospital, they got a letter from Associate Health Minister Peter Dunne granting its use, and Alex became the first person in New Zealand history to receive medicinal cannabis in hospital.
After he died, it emerged that Rose, who has high cheekbones and clear smooth skin and a level gaze, was giving him Elixinol anyway, posted to her by another mother. She couldn't give a rat's arse about the law, she told reporters at the time, and anyway, he regained consciousness and his seizures decreased, though the final medical report said it didn't do anything meaningful. "The report did not discuss the 43 chemical drugs in his system," Rose counters.
She knows things could have been different, but never mind all that now. Rose and her family feel Alex around them constantly, lightly joking as he always did, and they still talk to him in their own ways; Rose will ask him, cursing, for help finding a carpark. She's vowed to spend the rest of her life working to make sure medicinal cannabis — which contains nothing psychoactive — is available as a first-line treatment for others, hoping to spare them her family's pain.
She believes people should be allowed to grow three cannabis plants for personal use, allowing them to choose to self-medicate. "Lavender, rosemary, thyme, cannabis," she says. "We register our cars. Couldn't you be a registered cannabis grower and grow three plants?"
It has become Alex's legacy. "I could see it as a massive loss, but there's also that flipside where he's grinning from the other side, saying 'Haven't we caused a stir?', and 'Let's keep the conversation going'. So it's actually quite beautiful. He didn't die for no reason. He left us with a message — our health is meant to be an integrated conversation with our doctors of both holistic and pharmaceutical medicine."
He is one of seven children — twins Jack and Leo, 6, Harriett, 10, Hugh, 12, Molly, 15, and Jess, 21. Rose and the children live now in a housebus up the Maitai Valley, a secluded cocoon in Nelson full of bush, birds, and the steady sing of the river. Most of their belongings are in storage.
They moved there on November 1, exactly seven months after Alex got sick on April 1 and exactly four months after he died on July 1. Those sorts of things mean something to her; and as a feng shui practitioner and consultant attuned to the sense of her surroundings, the family home became too much when Alex died. After a death, and especially after a long winter of public struggle, you find out what's important: family, togetherness, love.
After he died, Rose opened his 2011 Rugby World Cup book and found two perfect, massive dried marijuana leaves pressed between its pages from the plant they'd grown together. Rugby and cannabis — two of his many passions. She's planning on writing a book telling the story of Alex's life, and she's going to frame those two leaves. She'll give one to his father, Martin, and keep one for herself.
It'll go nicely with the other memorials she has for her warrior angel, arranged in the front of her bus — a big picture of Alex, his small statue of Buddha, some of her crystals, and the framed letter from Peter Dunne that came too late.
At Christmas, the family visited the Broadgreen rose garden, where the tall and vigorous hybrid tea rose Alexander is planted next to a floribunda named Fond Memories and Alex's green memorial seat. It was somewhere he liked to hang out with his mates, and is close enough to his siblings' schools that they can visit.
Some of his ashes are scattered there, and Rose is saving the rest for when the time is right. Alex will let her know.
News Moderator: Robert Celt 420 MAGAZINE ®
Full Article: NZ National Portrait: Rose Renton, Medical Marijuana Campaigner
Author: Naomi Arnold
Contact: Stuff
Photo Credit: Marion Van Dijk
Website: Stuff
But her oldest son was nothing if not determined — he felt strongly that medicinal cannabis should be available to all. He would follow his mum around with a laptop, telling her she had to read what he'd discovered, and when he turned 18 he voted for the Cannabis Party, believing a coalition might mean a change in drug law. Growing a plant shouldn't be illegal, he thought — and anyway, look at the harm alcohol caused amongst people his age.
Eventually Rose relented. "He was stubborn as hell," she says. "Never rude, just quietly determined." She thought growing marijuana would be good for a laugh. They planted several, and they grew like, well, weeds, and she could no longer keep them camouflaged. They took the iron off the shed roof and installed clearlite instead, and the plants grew vigorously in the filtered sunlight until the end of their life cycle.
Alex, a strapping rugby player raised on natural remedies and passionate about medicinal cannabis, couldn't legally take it if he got sick. In April last year he was felled by a string of epileptic seizures that conventional medicine couldn't cure. Rose and Alex's sister Jessie, 21, battled Wellington Hospital and the Government to allow him to be treated with a medical cannabidiol oil, Elixinol. After 66 days in the hospital, they got a letter from Associate Health Minister Peter Dunne granting its use, and Alex became the first person in New Zealand history to receive medicinal cannabis in hospital.
After he died, it emerged that Rose, who has high cheekbones and clear smooth skin and a level gaze, was giving him Elixinol anyway, posted to her by another mother. She couldn't give a rat's arse about the law, she told reporters at the time, and anyway, he regained consciousness and his seizures decreased, though the final medical report said it didn't do anything meaningful. "The report did not discuss the 43 chemical drugs in his system," Rose counters.
She knows things could have been different, but never mind all that now. Rose and her family feel Alex around them constantly, lightly joking as he always did, and they still talk to him in their own ways; Rose will ask him, cursing, for help finding a carpark. She's vowed to spend the rest of her life working to make sure medicinal cannabis — which contains nothing psychoactive — is available as a first-line treatment for others, hoping to spare them her family's pain.
She believes people should be allowed to grow three cannabis plants for personal use, allowing them to choose to self-medicate. "Lavender, rosemary, thyme, cannabis," she says. "We register our cars. Couldn't you be a registered cannabis grower and grow three plants?"
It has become Alex's legacy. "I could see it as a massive loss, but there's also that flipside where he's grinning from the other side, saying 'Haven't we caused a stir?', and 'Let's keep the conversation going'. So it's actually quite beautiful. He didn't die for no reason. He left us with a message — our health is meant to be an integrated conversation with our doctors of both holistic and pharmaceutical medicine."
He is one of seven children — twins Jack and Leo, 6, Harriett, 10, Hugh, 12, Molly, 15, and Jess, 21. Rose and the children live now in a housebus up the Maitai Valley, a secluded cocoon in Nelson full of bush, birds, and the steady sing of the river. Most of their belongings are in storage.
They moved there on November 1, exactly seven months after Alex got sick on April 1 and exactly four months after he died on July 1. Those sorts of things mean something to her; and as a feng shui practitioner and consultant attuned to the sense of her surroundings, the family home became too much when Alex died. After a death, and especially after a long winter of public struggle, you find out what's important: family, togetherness, love.
After he died, Rose opened his 2011 Rugby World Cup book and found two perfect, massive dried marijuana leaves pressed between its pages from the plant they'd grown together. Rugby and cannabis — two of his many passions. She's planning on writing a book telling the story of Alex's life, and she's going to frame those two leaves. She'll give one to his father, Martin, and keep one for herself.
It'll go nicely with the other memorials she has for her warrior angel, arranged in the front of her bus — a big picture of Alex, his small statue of Buddha, some of her crystals, and the framed letter from Peter Dunne that came too late.
At Christmas, the family visited the Broadgreen rose garden, where the tall and vigorous hybrid tea rose Alexander is planted next to a floribunda named Fond Memories and Alex's green memorial seat. It was somewhere he liked to hang out with his mates, and is close enough to his siblings' schools that they can visit.
Some of his ashes are scattered there, and Rose is saving the rest for when the time is right. Alex will let her know.
News Moderator: Robert Celt 420 MAGAZINE ®
Full Article: NZ National Portrait: Rose Renton, Medical Marijuana Campaigner
Author: Naomi Arnold
Contact: Stuff
Photo Credit: Marion Van Dijk
Website: Stuff
