Medical Cannabis under Prescription

Debate between Mike Penning and Jeff Smith

Monday 20th May 2019 Commons Chamber

[Jeff Smith]

I am delighted to have given way to my hon. Friend to allow him to pay that tribute to our visitors today.

I have received two letters from a constituent of mine, who has asked me to keep his name confidential. I am happy to give it to the Minister on a confidential basis. My constituent first wrote to me on this issue last September, after the Government accepted the principle that we should be able to prescribe medical cannabis, because the aim had not been fulfilled. He wrote:

“I have a grandson who suffers from a severe form of Crohn’s disease. He is in constant pain and finds that his present regime of opiate-based pain killing has difficult side effects. He tells me that his consultant doctor is willing to prescribe the cannabis-based alternative as soon as it is permitted. My grandson has never obtained cannabis illegally and does not intend to do so.”

My constituent wrote again to me in April. Things had moved on, but this probably illustrates the problem. In the second letter, he wrote:

“The position in my family is now relatively fortunate. Left in limbo for a long time by the NHS, and enduring frequent nausea and serious debility, my grandson used his own initiative. He found a private doctor specialising in pain control, a highly respectable man, formerly an NHS consultant, who gave him a prescription for a cannabis product. This has been successful. His symptoms are under control, his general health and capacity to eat are much improved, and he is being phased back into his job, which he had been likely to lose. I am meeting the financial cost to the tune of £695 per month currently. By tightening my belt I can do it, at least for a reasonable time to come. I never spent money to better effect in my life, and I am so grateful for medical science. But some of the sufferers on the TV programme have no financial resources. And for an old Socialist like me it goes against the grain to use private medicine.”

Madam Deputy Speaker, you do not need to be an old socialist to think that this is an unacceptable situation.

[Sir Mike Penning]

I don’t think I’m an old socialist.

[Jeff Smith]

The right hon. Gentleman, who set out the case very well, is certainly not an old socialist. As we heard from him, there are multiple examples of patients who want to access medical cannabis, and whose doctors want them to access it, but are not able to do so. These are patients who last year were given hope that their pain, anxiety and seizures would end, only to have their hopes dashed and frustrated.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jeff Smith]

My right hon. Friend makes an excellent point. He is absolutely right. I am not aware of any evidence of the product making a condition worse. People have been using cannabis for thousands of years. If these worries about side effects were really justified, I think we would probably have seen them by now.

[Sir Mike Penning]

The hon. Gentleman has touched on a very important point. Because we are talking about pharmaceutical prescription drugs, the risk has been relatively alleviated. There is evidence of people using cannabis in a casual way that does have an adverse neurological effect. That is why this whole debate and campaign had to be separated from that so that it is about prescribed use. There is a separate debate to do with casual use. He is absolutely right—people have used it for thousands of years. Some people think that is correct and other people do not. For me, it is about knowing exactly what is in the product that is being given to the patient.

[Jeff Smith]

The right hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. That points to the issue about where we get the product from. The problems, allegedly linked to increased episodes of psychosis, are from high-THC street cannabis, which is not what we mean when we talk about medical cannabis products. As I said, there are lots of different types of cannabis products. They are very often CBD-based, but when they contain THC—the psychoactive element—it is a much, much smaller amount than in street cannabis. It is like comparing apples and pears. He makes a really important point.

We need to look at how we can learn from evidence in countries such as the Netherlands, Germany and Canada, as well as countries that have successfully introduced medical cannabis regimes, such as Australia and Denmark. What work are the Government doing to learn from the experience of those jurisdictions? There are currently at least 138 medical cannabis trials worldwide. We need to take into account that global evidence.

I would like to ask the Minister a number of questions. Why can clinicians make individual decisions on certain conditions but not others? For example, clinicians can make individual decisions on a case-by-case basis on Crohn’s disease, which my constituent’s grandson suffers from, but not on some other conditions.

We need a scoping exercise to look at how we can enable patients to get this medicine now. There are estimated to be something like 3 million cannabis users in the UK, with around 1 million of those using it for medical purposes. Those figures may be high but, whichever figures we look at, there are hundreds of thousands of people using cannabis to alleviate pain or help with a medical condition. At the moment, they get their product from the street—from the illegal trade. That is not good for them or for society. That is the key point. People are already using cannabis for medical reasons and getting it from illegal suppliers.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Mike Penning and Jeff Smith

Monday 22nd February 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mike Penning]

I wrote my previous answer earlier, because I did not know what was going to be asked. The truth is that if all victims know exactly what is going on once they have reported a crime, they will have confidence in the criminal justice system. TrackMyCrime will help in that regard.

[Jeff Smith (Manchester, Withington) (Lab)]

12. What progress her Department has made on reviewing the status of poppers within the Psychoactive Substances Act 2016.