ALL Yunni can remember of her life before discovering medical cannabis was pain. 

From the moment she awoke from restless slumber to when she laid down at night, her body would be wracked by pain as a result of her chronic kidney disease and diabetes.

“I had all sorts of sicknesses; the most chronic was kidney failure,” said the 40-year-old mother of two.

“I would occasionally experience sudden paralysis and couldn’t walk, and I also had chronic diabetes,” she told The Malaysian Insight.

In 2007, doctors recommended that she begin undergoing dialysis after her kidneys were found to only be functioning at a rate of 4%.

Yunni said in researching alternative forms of treatment for her health problems, she and her husband came upon medical cannabis, or medical marijuana, as an option.

“At that time, it was either dialysis or cannabis, so we decided to try cannabis,” she said.

“The first time I tried it, I slept like a baby because it had been so long since I had good sleep. My body was not in pain anymore,” she said.

“The next morning, I woke up and was able to walk. I continued using cannabis,” she said, adding she has been using cannabis to treat her symptoms for the past 10 years.

Yunni is one of more than 800 “customers” of Muhammad Lukman Mohamad, who was recently sentenced to death by hanging for possessing, processing and distributing marijuana in liquid and oil forms.

Lukman was caught with almost 2kg of dry cannabis and 260g of compressed cannabis at his home in 2015.

He was sentenced to death by the Shah Alam High Court on August 30.

A petition on social media to free Lukman has since garnered 60,000 signatures.

In Malaysia, a 150ml bottle of medicinal cannabis oil sells for RM35 but Yunni insisted that Lukman was not motivated by money.

Yunni, who had been buying cannabis from Lukman since 2010, said his only wrongdoing was his selflessness and desire to help people at his own expense and risk.

“He used to give me free oil every month because he knew I was not well,” she said.

“Another of Lukman’s patients, a man who has thalassaemia (a blood disorder), also gets his oils from Lukman, but when Lukman was caught, he had to start making his own.”

Yunni said Lukman started out making cannabis oil to help family members suffering from chronic illnesses. But when word got out about how effective the oils were, he began selling them.

“Lukman has helped a lot of his family members, and he became a believer from then on… to me, he is a saviour.”

She said many like her had no other alternative to cannabis as a means to enjoy their lives free from pain.

“Today, I can support myself, I can work. I don’t know how cannabis destroys lives because for me, cannabis saved my life.

“I’ve been through it, and I want to tell people that the pain can end and quality of life can return.” – September 24, 2018.