Hawke's Bay mother who gave daughter cannabis oil tells why she broke the law

Toni Matich tells Sunday the cannbis oil eased her daughter's suffering. Photo / Screengrab / TV One

A Hawke's Bay mother wants people to know what drove her to break the law by giving her daughter cannabis oil.

Toni Matich told TV One's Sunday programme she had no regrets because she eased her daughter's suffering.

Ms Matich said she had "spectacular" results after supplying her 17-year-old daughter, Monique, with cannabis oil to alleviate the pain from enduring more than 1000 seizures a day.

Monique was diagnosed with Dravet syndrome, a rare form of epilepsy that begins in infancy.

Every seizure carries the risk of causing severe brain damage.

Ms Matich was told by doctors she had exhausted all treatment options and her daughter had only months to live when she began researching medicinal marijuana.

She is a scientist, having studied horticulture, science and technology at university.

Ms Matich consulted botanists, pharmacologists and chemists about cannabis oil treatment and the method used to produce it. The results had been "spectacular".

"I got my daughter back. She was happy, she was talking and even cracking jokes."

However, when the oil tester lost his job the oil was no longer able to be supplied safely.

She told Hawke's Bay Today that she was not just using "hash in the kitchen", but the medicine was expertly handled and researched. She wants to understand why her daughter responded to the treatment and get the laws changed around the regulation of cannabis oil for medicinal use.

"Wouldn't it be wonderful if it was available to those who need it?" she said.

"We are not a free-the-weed group, quite the opposite."