Pubdate: Thu, 11 Feb 2016
Source: Independent  (UK)
Copyright: 2016 Independent Newspapers (UK) Ltd.
Contact:  http://www.independent.co.uk/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/209
Author: Nigel Morris

CLEGG BACKS CAMPAIGN CALLING FOR LEGALISATION OF MEDICAL USE OF CANNABIS

A campaign to legalise the medical use of cannabis is launched today 
amid warnings that up to 1.1 million people across Britain are 
currently breaking the law by taking the drug to combat the pain of 
chronic conditions.

The drive, which coincides with a Coronation Street storyline 
focusing on the issue, is being supported by the former Deputy Prime 
Minister Nick Clegg and senior politicians from all parties.

Campaigners hope to attract hundreds of thousands of signatures for a 
petition backing the move, with the aim of forcing a Commons debate 
on legalising medicinal cannabis. They are pressing for ministers to 
follow the lead of several Western European countries and US states 
in allowing doctors to prescribe marijuana to alleviate the painful 
symptoms of disorders such as multiple sclerosis, Crohn's disease and 
rheumatoid arthritis.

Estimates of the number of people in the UK who use cannabis for 
medical reasons range between 861,000 and 1.15 million. They are 
thought to represent between a quarter and a third of the country's 
three million-plus regular cannabis users.

Supporters of legalisation believe they will receive widespread 
support after millions of television viewers watched the plight of 
the Coronation Street character, Izzy Armstrong, who is a wheelchair 
user. She begins to suffer such severe pain that her regular 
prescription medicine cannot tackle it and in desperation resorts to cannabis.

The campaign's co-ordinator, Peter Carroll, said: "For too long the 
issue of medical cannabis has been caught up in the wider issue of 
drug law reform, but this is a standalone issue. Denying patients 
access to a medicine that can help them just because it contains 
cannabis is morally wrong and cruel. We are criminalising people 
whose only aim is to ease the pain and discomfort of their condition."

Mr Clegg, who recently met a delegation of medicinal cannabis users, 
said: "This is an issue whose time has come. Thousands of Britons 
live with agonising pain when there is a medicine that we know works 
that could be made easily available to them. They deserve our 
compassion and support, not criminal records or a lifetime of pain. 
Whatever your views on cannabis or drug use more widely, surely we 
can all agree that doctors should be able to prescribe medicine to 
their patients if they think it will help them."

The Labour MP, Paul Flynn, said: "This is a drug which has been 
trialled for 5,000 years by many millions of people. If there were 
serious adverse effects, they would have been apparent many years 
ago. I believe the evidence is overwhelming. From scientific trials 
it does have an effect particularly relieving the spasms that people 
with multiple sclerosis have."

Caroline Lucas, the Green MP, said: "I'm persuaded by the evidence 
that cannabis should be regulated and available for medical use via, 
for example, pharmacists. It's important to get the regulatory model 
right, but the bottom line is that we need to end the perverse way in 
which individuals are criminalised simply for wanting to relieve the 
pain they are suffering."

Several Conservative MPs have backed legalising medical cannabis. 
They include the former cabinet minister, Peter Lilley, who has 
pointed out that Queen Victoria is believed to have used the drug to 
relieve menstrual pain. He said: "If it is a Victorian value, surely 
it can be made more widely available."
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