Comedy legend Dai Henwood has spoken of the benefits of medical marijuana.
Appearing on Stuff’s Generally Famous podcast, Henwood, who went public with his stage 4 bowel cancer diagnosis in January, says it’s an integral part of his recovery from various medical procedures.
“It has been huge for me because I don’t tolerate opioids very well,” Henwood told host Simon Bridges.
“They just block me up and make me nauseous, so I had to look at other options for recovering from surgery.
“I was using CBD and THC to help with nausea and pain. Then, through chemotherapy, it is the main tool for me just because it helps with nausea, sleep and appetite.”
Doctors have been able to prescribe CBD products to patients since April 2020.
Later that year, voters at the general election had their say on a referendum about whether to legalise the sale, use, possession and production of recreational cannabis.
In the end, the Cannabis Legalisation and Control Bill was defeated by a relatively narrow margin.
“I was a bit disappointed with that as I thought the Government at the time had such a majority that decriminalisation was probably something actually to just pull the trigger on and move through,” Henwood told Bridges’
The Taskmaster star’s father was a toxicologist, and in 1971 published a book on drug use in New Zealand called A Turned-On World.
Henwood said his father never tried illegal substances but wrote about the drug use he was seeing in Wellington at the time.
“It was basically about what drugs do to people and the harm on society and so forth. And I think his main view was pretty much that if you can legalise most drugs, then you can deal with them on a social level because it takes the stigma out of it and so forth.”
Medical marijuana, meanwhile, was at the centre of a funny interaction Henwood had with airport security recently.
“I’ve got my licence now so I can travel with it. And I was going through airport security and for part of my comedy set I use a parsnip and the guy stopped me and he goes, ‘What’s in your bag by the way?’
“And I went, ‘Oh there’s a frozen parsnip and some marijuana,’ and that phrase short-circuited his brain. He was like, ‘What’s the frozen parsnip got to do with the marijuana?!’”
To listen to the full interview, in which Henwood also talks about his relationship with mindfulness and appearing on TV phenomenon Taskmaster, click the play icon on the audio player at the top of this story or visit the Generally Famous homepage.
There’s a new episode of Generally Famous every Wednesday. Follow the show on Apple, Spotify - or wherever else you get your podcasts - to get instant, automatic access.
-Stuff