I'm very pleased to be supporting this debate today. To me, it's a simple matter—a very, very simple matter. When people are suffering an illness that has symptoms that most of us don't have an idea of their seriousness, nor how they bring everyday life to a stop; where living with the condition is a real pain that paralyses someone, or makes them feel that life is not worth living; where sleep doesn't exist, night after night; I think that everything possible should be done to alleviate that suffering.

What we're discussing this afternoon is the right to use cannabis as a tool to alleviate pain or suffering. Cannabis, of course, is a word that is controversial. Debates and arguments on decriminalising cannabis or legalising cannabis for recreational use have existed for many decades. There are strong viewpoints on both sides of that argument. But, today, may I appeal to people to leave their views on that debate to one side? We're not talking about that today. We're talking about a drug in the medical sense, and no other sense at all. The fact that that drug is used in a different context by some people should not be a barrier to looking at the values of cannabis as a medical drug.

The Conservative Member for Clwyd West—I'm pleased to see him in the Chamber—has confused both issues in the past. I read an article where he was quoted as saying: