Theresa May urged to review law on cannabis by fellow Conservatives

William Hague joined those who have urged a change of approach over the narcotic, stating that the idea it can be ‘driven off the streets and out of people’s lives by the state is nothing short of deluded’.

His comments came after health secretary Jeremy Hunt suggested ‘a different way’ was needed following widespread outrage over the confiscation from mother Charlotte Caldwell of cannabis oil supplies which she brought from Canada for her 12-year-old son Billy, who has acute epilepsy.

After Billy was rushed to Chelsea and Westminster Hospital on Friday night in a critical condition, having suffered multiple seizures, home secretary Sajid Javid granted a 20-day emergency licence allowing use of the oil.

On Monday, fellow Tory Crispin Blunt, who chairs the all-parliamentary group for drug Pplicy reform, urged the Home Office to ‘clear out of the way’ and let the Department of Health take control of policy on medical cannabis.

The government announced a new expert panel of clinicians would be established to give swift advice on the prescription of cannabis-based medicines to individual patients.

But prime minister Theresa May suggested the government would look only into the operation of the current system of licences for use in individual cases, rather than reviewing the law more widely.

The Home Office said the government had no intention of reviewing the drug’s classification.

Writing in the Telegraph, Lord Hague, who led the Conservatives from 1997 to 2001 and was foreign secretary under David Cameron from 2010 to 2014, called for the party to rethink policy, saying the war against the drug had been lost.

He wrote: ‘Everyone sitting in a Whitehall conference room needs to recognise that, out there, cannabis is ubiquitous, and issuing orders to the police to defeat its use is about as up-to-date and relevant as asking the Army to recover the Empire.

‘This battle is effectively over.’

Billy was discharged from hospital early on Monday afternoon, but now Ms Caldwell, 50, from Co Tyrone, wants an urgent review of the law on the substance, which is banned in the UK despite being available in many other countries.

Ms Caldwell credits cannabis oil with keeping the boy’s seizures at bay, saying he was seizure-free for more than 300 days while using it, but THC is restricted in the UK.

She demanded a meeting with the home secretary and the health secretary ‘within 24 hours’.

Speaking outside hospital, she said: ‘The fact that Billy has been discharged is testimony to the effectiveness of the treatment and underlines how vital it is that every child and every single family affected in our country should have immediate access to the very same medication.’

Mr Hunt had earlier told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: ‘I don’t think anyone who followed that story could sensibly say that we are getting the law on this kind of thing right.

‘I think we all know that we need to find a different way.’

Shadow home secretary Diane Abbott said Labour supported the legal prescription of cannabis oil for medical purposes, saying: ‘Children have been put at risk and experienced extraordinary suffering because this government drags its heels and refuses to grant cannabis oil licences.’

But asked about the law Mrs May was more cautious, saying: ‘Do we need to look at these cases and consider what we’ve got in place? Yes.

‘But what needs to drive us in all these cases has to be what clinicians are saying about these issues.

‘There’s a very good reason why we’ve got a set of rules around cannabis and other drugs, because of the impact that they have on people’s lives, and we must never forget that.’

A spokeswoman for the Home Office said: ‘There is strong scientific and medical evidence that cannabis is a harmful drug which can harm people’s mental and physical health and can damage communities.

‘The government is clear – we must prevent drug use in our communities and help those dependent on drugs to recover, while ensuring our drugs laws are enforced.

‘The government has no intention of reviewing the classification of cannabis and it will remain a class B drug. Classification is completely separate to scheduling regulations.

‘Any debate within government about the efficacy and therapeutic use of cannabis-based medicines emphatically does not extend to any review regarding the classification of cannabis and the penalties for the illicit possession, cultivation and trafficking of cannabis will remain the same.’

PA WIRE