A woman who suffers severe seizures yesterday appealed for the Government to move fast on the legalisation of medical cannabis.

Natasha York, 43, said she dreaded the thought of what her two daughters went through when she was hit by an attack.

She added: “Every time I come out of it, I give thanks that I’m okay. Then I just want to have a good cry, wondering what my kids have seen.”

Ms York said she had watched successive administrations debate medical cannabis for the last five years.

She added: “I just need Government to understand that there are honest people who need help.

Ms York concluded: “This journey we have gone through is just so unfair.”

She was speaking after Kathy Lynn Simmons, the Attorney-General and Minister of Legal Affairs, earlier this week tabled draft legislation to allow therapeutic use of the drug.

Ms York’s doctor, Kyjuan Brown, the medical director at Northshore Medical and Aesthetics Centre, welcomed the news, but warned the pace was too slow for the estimated 1,500 people in Bermuda who would benefit from medical use of cannabis.

Ms York was jailed for three months last year after she tried to smuggle 1,430 grams of cannabis products into the country.

She was released on appeal and served her sentence at home, with an electronic tag fitted.

Ms York said: “I do not advise anyone to take that risk. But I just felt I didn’t have any voice.

Ms York added: “I am a law-abiding person, but it felt like I was being ignored.

“They weren’t going to listen to my GP who was telling them what would work for me.”

Ms York tried to bring the drug to Bermuda after she tried medical cannabis in Canada.

She got almost immediate relief from symptoms that had required ten pills a day — and which failed to deal with her condition.

Ms York lost her job at the airport in 2011 when her problem, similar to epilepsy, struck.

She recalled: “I was at the door on my way to work. I just started shaking.”

Now living in emergency housing and on financial assistance, she said she often injured herself and had bit her tongue and suffered bruises from falls.

Ms York said: “Marijuana not only controls my seizures, it calms my whole nervous system and helps with the pain. It relaxes me and I can sleep.”

She added: “I want to give full credit to Northshore Medical and Dr Brown. He cares.”

But even though Dr Brown helped her obtain a licence to use medical marijuana last year, she has never been able to get the drug. Dr Brown explained: “Bermuda can only import one gram per year, as a country, under a limit agreed with the United Nations. We could change that — we have the right to do it.”

The physician, who also belongs to the Bermuda Medicinal Cannabis Association, said the draft legislation tabled this week in the Senate was “not the framework I would envision”.

He added: “This Bill is massive. It brings forth a lot of regulation that I am not sure is particularly necessary for Bermuda.”

A five-person Medical Cannabis Authority would issue licences for the “use, by inhalation, cultivation and possession” of the drug, as well as identification cards for cannabis use.

The authority would also keep an electronic database for licences and ID cards, and designate inspectors to check up on premises involved in the supply of medical cannabis.

Dr Brown said the island would benefit from “something simpler” — and that there appeared to be an unrealistic expectation that Bermuda could develop “a next pillar of the economy” through exportation.

He added: “With medical cannabis, we are not talking about growing in a field.

“It has to be grown in a facility with artificial lighting. It would be much too expensive to export from Bermuda. I just feel because my patients are suffering, there is a simpler way.”

He said the Government should give immediate permission for doctors to prescribe imported medical cannabis.

Dr Brown added: “I have heard from ministers that are ready and willing. I believe it’s the technical officers that are dragging their feet.

“We have the mechanisms in place now to prescribe it. The Government just needs to increase the limits.

“The framework is already there — that’s how simple it is.”

A spokeswoman for the Ministry of Legal Affairs said last night: “The Minister of Legal Affairs tabled the Bill for consultation and a framework is in place for all stakeholders to review and share their views on the Bill and licensing regulations.”

She added that people could make their opinions known online at forum.gov.bm or by e-mail at consultation@gov.bm.