Purely Medicinal?

As the well-connected, and clearly well-funded, Centre for Medicinal Cannabis is launched, let us be absolutely clear that there is no such thing as "medicinal cannabis". 

I have very bad arthritis, and it is getting worse. If cannabis relieves that or anything else, then it has an active ingredient that does so. That active ingredient needs to be identified and prescribed. When we need aspirin, then we do not simply ingest bark. 

Radical change can never come while the workers, the poor and the youth are in a state of stupefaction. That is what the Big Dope lobby wants. Of course it does. Look at who and what it is. We have been here before. 

Another hung Parliament is coming, however, and we need our people to hold the balance of power in it. I will stand for this parliamentary seat of North West Durham, if I can raise the £10,000 necessary to mount a serious campaign. By common consent, Labour, the Conservatives and I are each on 30 per cent support, so that any one of us could be the First Past the Post. 

Drug policy is a clear point of difference between Laura Pidcock and me, and also between me and Toby Young, who will be the Conservative candidate unless he has conceded every point here. Please email davidaslindsay@hotmail.com. Very many thanks.