The debate over medicinal cannabis driving laws in NSW has reached a critical stage. The Government's reform bill has passed the Lower House and has now reached the Legislative Council. But despite debate beginning in the Upper House on Thursday 6 August, it was not brought to a vote.

Procedural manoeuvring and lengthy speeches from the Opposition ran down the clock, with debate eventually reaching the Parliament's 10pm cutoff. The bill now remains unfinished and will have to return when Parliament resumes in September.

For medicinal cannabis patients, the delay is frustrating. But the debate also revealed something important about where the political battle over these reforms now lies.

There are concerns within the cannabis community about the Government's model. Many patients don't like the proposed register. There are concerns that the laboratory threshold of 50 nanograms of THC per millilitre of saliva is too low, particularly for regular medicinal cannabis patients.

These concerns are legitimate, and Legalise Cannabis will continue pushing for the fairest possible system. There has also been progress.

During her second read speech, Minister Aitchison provided important clarification about how the proposed register would operate. Registration will be free. Patient information will not be linked to automatic numberplate recognition systems and medicinal cannabis status will not appear on physical driver licences. Digital licences will display a short code, with patients able to choose whether that code is visible.

Police will only be able to access the register at the roadside to confirm whether someone is registered. They will not be able to see medical conditions, treatment information or other medical records. Access will be restricted to authorised personnel and the information cannot be used for unrelated purposes.

Those protections address some of the concerns patients raised, even if many would prefer there was no register at all. But there is another side to this debate that the cannabis community needs to understand. While we are arguing about how to make the reform better, opponents are arguing that it shouldn't happen at all.

Speakers from the Liberal Party, National Party and former One Nation MLC Rod Roberts have portrayed the reform as a threat to road safety, warning that allowing medicinal cannabis patients to drive with THC in their system could lead to more crashes and deaths.

That is the political fight happening in Parliament. The cannabis community wants a fairer model. The Opposition believes the Government's model already goes too far.

This bill isn't perfect. But after years of patients losing their licences simply because their legally prescribed medication was detected, NSW finally has legislation before Parliament that begins to address that injustice.

Now we need to get it through the Upper House.