Tonight in Parliament we debated two private members bill about the medicinal use of cannabis and limiting advertising of alcohol on television and radio.  For the Labour Party these are conscience votes (ie we vote as individuals rather than on party lines).  Even though both Bills were lost by a large margin,  I want to outline my reasons for supporting the Bills to go to a Select Committee for further consideration.

1. Medicinal Cannabis. The Bill is very poorly written.  It establishes a regime whereby people are given cards by doctors that will allow them to grow and smoke cannabis for personal medical use.  To me this is a clumsy way of allowing access to cannabis based products for treatment of pain and chronic illness.  In particular the idea of perscribing smoking is something that I think is wrong.  Another issue was the list of conditions in the schedule to the Bill  included some  conditions, such as schizophrenia, that I do not think would be appropriate to be treated with cannabis products.

If the Bill had continued in its current form I would not have been able to continue to support it. But I do think it is worth having a debate about this issue.  There is already a product (Satavax) that is a cannabis derivative and can be perscribed. But this is not accessible or affordabe for a wide range of people.   A large number of countries have cannabis products for pain relief, and we should at least be adult enough to discuss the issue. 

2. Television/Radio Adveristing of Alcohol.   This Bill attempted to place a ban on television/radio advertising of alcohol.  I actually do not support a total ban, but rather some greater restrictions, particularly in terms of the times advertisements are on and the nature of some advertisements.   Again I felt that we needed to have the debate at the Select Committee to explore the issues around television advertising and see if there was a workable compromise.  In this case there is a great deal of work going on around this issue at the Law Commission, and on other pieces of legislation, so I think the issue will be back with us before long.

So, in the end neither Bill made it past First Reading.  Such is the nature of democracy.