The Government will not be legalising the medicinal use of cannabis in New Zealand, but it will allow terminal patients caught growing cannabis to use their illness as a defence to avoid prosecution. New legislation introduced by the Government will also introduce a medicinal cannabis scheme to enable access to medical-grade cannabis products and remove cannabidiol from the schedule of controlled drugs. That meant eventually, patients with a prescription would be able to access medicinal cannabis products at a pharmacy. That scheme would take time to implement, but as soon as the law was passed patients with less than 12 months to live, who had been caught using the raw form of cannabis, would have a legal defence.