Indonesia could issue a fatwa that medical marijuana is halal – thanks to a mother’s love
- The campaign for the legalisation of marijuana for medical use is being driven by a group of women fighting to ease the pain of their children, who have cerebral palsy
- After one of the mums’ desperate pleas went viral, an official urged Indonesia’s top Islamic scholar body to issue a religious ruling permitting medical cannabis for Muslims
Santi Warastuti, 43, recently went viral on social media after calling for the legalisation of marijuana for medical uses, in a plea made on a stretch of a busy road in downtown Jakarta during the capital’s car-free day.
There, Santi stood alongside her 13-year-old daughter, Pika Sasi Kirana, who has been paralysed for a number of years because of cerebral palsy, a motor disability. Unbeknown to Santi, popular singer Andien Aisyah walked past and snapped a photo of the two, which spread quickly on Twitter.
“This is beyond my expectation. I went to the car-free day because I demanded a decision from the Constitutional Court on our request to review the material of Narcotics Law,” Santi told This Week in Asia.
“The court’s headquarter is in Jakarta, so I thought I had to go there, to open the hearts of the judges, to show them my daughter, to show that she needs medical [marijuana],” she said. “So that was me demanding the court to announce a decision on my [case] soon.”
Santi, who lives in Yogyakarta, is one of three mothers of children with cerebral palsy who in 2020 filed a request for judicial review of Indonesia’s 2009 narcotics law that prohibited the use of marijuana in all forms.
In their legal quest, which is supported by a number of civil rights and legal aid organisations, the women argued the conditions of their children can be relieved by medical marijuana, which is currently still classified as a type-1 narcotics in Indonesia.