My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, has demonstrated why anecdote is no substitute for good research. I heard that word used, so it is important to ensure that any use of cannabis for medicinal purposes, for which I have some sympathy, has to be on the basis of clinical research which has been properly carried out and peer reviewed. NICE is a good organisation and I am sure that it would be prepared to take that on board.
In response to a question put by the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, last Wednesday, I did make the point that there is evidence from America that troops coming back from Afghanistan suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder resulting in terrible nightmares about their battle experiences have improved using cannabis. However, it is still something which needs to be subject to properly controlled clinical trials.
Something that is often done during a clinical trial is to put the drug out to people on a named-patient basis. Once the clinical trials have been done, one way to institute this is to put in place legislation whereby medication can be given on a named-patient basis. However, I cannot accept it as a blanket way of dealing with these problems.