Medical Cannabis under Prescription

Michael Fabricant Excerpts

Monday 20th May 2019 Commons Chamber

[John Howell]

My right hon. Friend makes a valid point. The question is: why have so few—as he says, only two—actually received their medicine? Why has nobody else received them?

[Michael Fabricant (Lichfield) (Con)]

I have discussed this matter with Helen Stokes-Lampard, the chair of the Royal College of General Practitioners, and she makes the point that there is not training available for GPs to feel confident enough to prescribe this medicine themselves.

[John Howell]

I will come to the point about training in a moment, if my hon. Friend will be patient, but he makes a valid point.

I appreciate that we have to go carefully, in view of the harm that the unrestricted use of cannabis might do, but the number of people who have received their drugs is a mere pinprick on the surface of those who need them. I am not surprised people go abroad to get their drugs, because it is the only source.

--- Later in debate ---

[Tonia Antoniazzi]

The right hon. Gentleman is absolutely right, and I will go on to talk about a very good friend of mine who suffers with MS.

[Michael Fabricant]

I have a constituent who is suffering from very advanced multiple sclerosis. She has been unable to obtain the medication she needs, and her husband is growing small amounts of cannabis to relieve her pain. However, it is not just her who is suffering. Staffordshire police do not want to act, although technically the family is breaking the law. That is an impossible position, is it not? It really is up to the Department of Health and Social Care to find ways in which cannabis can be prescribed more widely and more quickly.

[Tonia Antoniazzi]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely spot on. The issue of the law and people who are using cannabis as a medicine to relieve their pain is especially relevant to those with multiple sclerosis.

My very good friend Chris Reilly has progressive MS, and this week he had to go to hospital. His wife Beth called an ambulance, and it took an hour for the paramedics to be able to give him the correct amount of pain relief so that he could be taken to hospital. He is in touch with me all the time. When I was selected as the parliamentary candidate for Gower, he was the first person to contact me and tell me that this was a subject very close to his heart, and that he wanted me to become involved with it. I thank him for that, but it makes me cry that I cannot help him and cannot provide the medical cannabis for him. I know that I am standing here and making comments as a politician, and that I am not a medical expert, but we all know that when our constituents and their families visit our surgeries we share their pain and their tears because they cannot access something that would, quite simply, make their lives a lot better.

[Michael Fabricant]

The hon. Lady is being very generous in giving way, and I totally agree with what she is saying. Is it not the case—cruel as it may seem to say this in the Chamber—that for those who are is suffering from advanced multiple sclerosis, there can be only one end to it? Is it not therefore cruel in the extreme that when something could mitigate the pain and the discomfort and is not going to do any more harm to the patient because there is no cure for advanced multiple sclerosis, that palliative care cannot be administered?

[Tonia Antoniazzi]

I completely agree. The families of children with intractable epilepsy are in exactly the same position, as are so many other people throughout the United Kingdom. My friend Chris is a very good example of how wrong it is that people with MS or epilepsy have no access to whole plant medical cannabis. As we know, it will never be a cure for everyone, but, as Chris told me yesterday, it provides the chance of a better quality of life. That is what people want. It is what the parents of children with intractable epilepsy want. They are at the end of the road. They have tried everything from the ketogenic diet to unlicensed drugs, which make the children unreceptive and do not improve their quality of life.