Medicinal Cannabis

Ronnie Cowan Excerpts

Monday 6th September 2021 Commons Chamber

[Sir Mike Penning]

We are not reinventing the wheel, as my hon. Friend says: we started this but are now lagging behind the rest of the world. The product is slightly different—the oil has different forms of THCs in it. The Minister used to be my Parliamentary Private Secretary all those years ago—how the mighty fall, and how the mighty have risen up the greasy ladder—and she is passionate about trying to help on this, but it is not about Epidiolex; it is about the particular product being prescribed actually working, and it is normally to do with the levels of THCs.

I think this problem might be to do with the terrible word “cannabis” that we use in this country. This is not anything to do with cannabis, really; I wish we could invent another name for it and just say “oil with TCHs in it”, because that would eradicate much of the fear that there is at present—and it is not just fear, it is dangerous to the argument.

[Ronnie Cowan (Inverclyde) (SNP)]

I feel a little sorry for the medical profession, because a slight correction should be made. Fifty years ago in the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 we pretty much classified cannabis as a poison. That is why the medical profession has not felt confident enough to use it, test it and research it; it simply could not. Now we are saying, “You guys have got to catch up and catch up quick,” and the Government have a role to play in facilitating that. Research is kicking off now, which is great, but although some say the medical profession should have been doing that for all these years, it could not do so because this place stopped it. On the right hon. Gentleman’s last point, let us call it “medical hemp”.

[Sir Mike Penning]

I completely agree on the medical profession and know exactly where the Home Office stood when I was at the Department. I would love to say that the whole of the Home Office and my civil servants in the narcotics part of it were thrilled by what I said in Westminster Hall all those years ago, but I can assure colleagues that they certainly were not, to say the least; fortunately, I had covered my back with the Home Secretary.

We need to move on from this, however. This is not about reform of the 1971 Act. It is about whether there is a group of children who we know get benefit from this, and whether, as we all know from our constituency postbags, there are other conditions that could also benefit from this type of oil with a THC product in it. That is where we are struggling.

We need to roll back this debate and talk, as I did at the start of my speech, about children—children who deserve the best possible start in life and just happen to have been born with a medical condition that the medical profession, in its infinite and great wisdom, has not quite got an answer for. This product is part of the answer, although it only alleviates the condition. As parents have said to me on many occasions, it does not take away the condition but it does let the children live a life as close to normality as possible; it is not normal, because it involves dropping oil on a little boy or girl’s tongue on a daily basis, but it is as normal as we can get.

--- Later in debate ---

[Ronnie Cowan (Inverclyde) (SNP)]

Thank you very much for calling me, Mr Deputy Speaker. I just jumped up quickly before you changed your mind! [Laughter.]

I thank the hon. Member for Edinburgh West (Christine Jardine) for securing this debate, which has been great; we were looking forward to a 30-minute Adjournment debate, a battle through and a quick exchange of views, but because nobody cares that much about national insurance contributions amendments, we have been given this extra time. I will not take too much more, because a lot has been covered by the previous speaker and there is no point going over old ground. I would genuinely like to say that at 9.10 on a Monday evening there is nothing I would rather be doing on my birthday than fighting the cause of something I truly believe in.

On 19 March 2019, the then Secretary of State for Health and Social Care said that medical cannabis “would be made available”. If I had heard those words as the parent of a child who would have benefited, I would have been thinking that it was going to be made available. I would not be expecting to jump through hoops or to have to raise thousands of pounds to pay for it. My hopes would have been raised. A child with such a condition would, typically, have 30 seizures a day and so over 900 days we are talking about 27,000 seizures. If they had had medical cannabis, we could be talking about zero seizures. However, it will be made available some day. After this time, the general frustration in this Chamber is, “Why are we still talking about it?” We have said this a number of times in Westminster Hall, and here and there, and we know everything that has been said today.

I am genuinely glad that the Minister has informed us that we are now manufacturing some of these medicines here in the UK, as that is a big step forward. However, we are still reliant on private prescriptions and, as was pointed out earlier, the main provider of those is about to retire. Yet again, if I was a parent in that situation, would the sword of Damocles not be hanging over me? This is the same idea as what happened when we left the EU—we could not get the medicines in and we had to have an extension to January, to July and now to next year. That is a ticking timebomb hanging over those young lives that we just do not need to have there. The long and short of it is that people who cannot afford it or cannot raise the funds for it—during covid, raising funds for many a charitable cause has been incredibly difficult—simply go without. They go without and so there are 27,000 seizures because they have to go without a medicine that they know is available and know would do the job for their child. It should not be this way. In less time, we have developed, tested and rolled out a covid vaccine throughout the United Kingdom. The vaccine did not exist, it had to be tested, and we have done it. It concerns me that these kids are less of a priority.

What are the UK Government going to do? How will they finally going create a legal framework in which GPs are comfortable writing prescriptions for cannabis-based medical products? If we could do that, it would be a game-changer. I am not playing politics with this issue, but I have contacted the Scottish Government, and in Scotland if people get an NHS prescription, the Government will pay for it. The same thing has to apply down here, so let us facilitate that. Let us go to doctors, explain what it is we are asking them to do and give them the confidence to stand up and do it. If a senior clinician can do it, a GP can do it.

[Tonia Antoniazzi]

The point the hon. Gentleman is making is really interesting. With covid, we have seen so many families really struggle and their children have been hospitalised—we are talking about such vulnerable children—so his point is so valuable. I thank him for all his work on this issue because together, across party lines, we will take this issue forward.

[Ronnie Cowan]

I thank the hon. Lady very much. The point that this is very much a cross-party issue should not be missed. We are not going to split down party lines or fall out over this. We will fall out over other things—I am absolutely sure of that—but this issue has strong cross-party support. I look around the Chamber at the Members present and I know the different politics we have, yet we are united behind this cause. The Government should take real note of that. I know they have a working majority of 80 or so, but people in the Conservative party are rightly backing this issue.

I shall not keep the House any longer. I fully acknowledge that the past 20 months have been incredibly demanding for the Department of Health and Social Care. We all get that—we all appreciate what has been done during that time—but the time for talking is well and truly over and the time for action has well and truly arrived.