Theresa May blocks change in medical cannabis law

Billy Caldwell, a 12-year-old boy with severe epilepsy, was admitted to hospital after his medical cannabis oil was confiscated. His parents had tried to bring it home from Canada after the Home Office blocked a special license that would have allowed access to the banned substance. Caldwell has now been discharged and given back 20 days’ worth of oil.

MPs have raised other cases in which medicinal cannabis could make a life-changing difference. Labour MP Tonia Antoniazza told the Chamber that two children in her constituency, Gower, could “benefit hugely” from the treatment, while six-year-old epileptic Alfie Dingley has been waiting three months for the Home Office to process a licence application. The child’s MP, Conservative Mike Penning, says he will go abroad himself to get his constituent’s medical cannabis if the Home Office doesn’t address the situation by tomorrow.

Jeremy Hunt has admitted that the law isn’t right and Sajid Javid, likely thanks to the campaigning efforts of Caldwell’s mother, demanded that the matter be discussed at Monday’s cabinet meeting. According to James Forsyth at The Spectator, it is Theresa May who repeatedly shut down the conversation at cabinet yesterday. She has refused to back the Health Secretary’s calls for legal reform.

As Diane Abbott writes in a piece for LabourList today, “once again it is Theresa May who is preventing any sensible reform of Home Office policy”. The Shadow Home Secretary goes onto confirm: “Labour in government will allow the legal prescription of cannabis oil for medical purposes. We will also review drugs policy to address all related issues of public health.”

While Labour is backing a law change, these heartbreaking cases speak to wider problems. We’ve seen this staggering incompetence again and again, and we can only conclude that the Home Office is not fit for purpose.

After the Windrush scandal, a continued failure to act on the very real dangers that led to the Grenfell Tower fire, Tory MP Christopher Chope blocking the upskirting criminalisation bill last week and now a shockingly slow and callous reaction to the cannabis oil cases, the Tories are doing a stunning job of boosting their ‘nasty party’ image while devastating people’s lives.

Sienna @siennamarla

Sign up to LabourList’s morning email for everything Labour, every weekday morning.