MEDICINAL CANNABIS LICENSING

That this House welcomes the establishment of a new All Party Parliamentary Group on Medicinal Cannabis on 10 July 2018; notes with concern the initial failure to licence medicinal cannabis products needed by patients to treat epilepsy and other conditions, as recently demonstrated by the cases of six year old Alfie Dingley and 12 year old Billy Caldwell; further notes with concern that Alfie's parents had to move to the Netherlands to secure the cannabis capsule medicine and that Billy's parents had their cannabis capsule medicine, brought in from Canada, confiscated at Belfast airport; notes that the UK lags far behind the 39 countries and the 32 US states that now permit medicinal cannabis use; notes that studies in the US demonstrate a 15 per cent saving on prescription medicines in states with legalised cannabis; acknowledges that the Home Office has now conceded to look at this issue more closely, and set up a two-step review headed by Prof Dame Sally Davies; calls on the Department of Health and Social Care to estimate the savings to the NHS drugs bill from permitting the use of medicinal cannabis; further calls on the Government to speed up the review process for licensing medicinal cannabis and simplify the guidelines around applying for a licence; and calls on the Government to put in place medicinal cannabis legislation fit for the 21st Century.