Medical Cannabis (Access) Bill — House of Commons, 2021-12-10
Topic: Health
Katherine Fletcher (Conservative, Centre-right): I thank my hon. Friend for the clarification. I think I might have used slightly clumsy language. What I am trying to get at is that for therapeutic use, there is still a required research standard. While cannabis is ubiquitous and lots of people use it for non-therapeutic and currently not legal uses—to quote Marshall Mathers III: "Marijuana is everywhere, where was you brought up?"— that does not translate into something that I feel I am comfortable in asking clinicians to engage with I want to develop my argument. If I may, I will mention my hon. Friend the Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Dr Mullan) and the five years of blood, sweat and tears—literally, I imagine—through medical school to achieve his title of doctor and take the Hippocratic oath. For those of us who have not gone through that journey, it is worth listening to the oath. The original version—its language is a bit dated now—is: "I will use my power to help the sick to the best of my ability and judgement; I will abstain from all intentional wrong doing or harm" I think that touches on the point my hon. Friend the Member for Penrith and The Border (Dr Hudson) made about how, to avoid doing harm, there needs to be some certainty either way. In its more up-to-date form—this is the oath that doctors from the University of Exeter take—it states: "I…pledge"— I am not pledging myself— "that I will do my best to serve humanity—caring for the sick, promoting good health and alleviating pain and suffering." Doctors are coming in wanting to do that, and I do not think the "blockage" that was referred to is anything to do with intention or fuddy-duddyness. Another of the lines they say is: "I will care for all patients equally and not allow prejudice to influence my practice." Again, any doctor looking at a child as sick as Ben can be when his seizures are bad are not, having taken that oath, going to go, "Oh, well, there’s something I could prescribe." Forgive me for continuing to emphasise the point, but the oath goes on: "I will respect the autonomy and dignity of my patients, and will uphold their confidentiality. I…support…teachers, colleagues and all those who sustain the NHS." Then it gets to these lines: "I shall never intentionally cause harm to my patients, and will have the utmost respect for human life I will practice medicine with integrity, humility, honesty and compassion I recognise that the practice of medicine is a privilege with which comes considerable responsibility and I will not abuse my position." This oath is a signifier of the integrity of individual doctors and medical ethics. It is their loadstone at the core of what they do, and I agree with them that it needs to be protected at all costs. Each doctor needs to weigh their own decisions, but for these complex cases—especially for some of the people who, by anecdote and, as I would put it, a good old case of looking at, have hugely benefited from medical cannabis—there is not one doctor in the system, but a series of them. While Ben has secured one NHS professor’s support for prescription and one private doctor’s support for prescription—I draw no distinction between the scale of the personal challenge and the qualifications that somebody has regardless of where they work—other medically qualified professionals within the CCG or funding panel are saying that they need more evidence.