Sheffield MP Nick Clegg calls for 'absurd' ban on medicinal cannabis to be lifted

In the paper published by the British Medical Journal (BMJ) and co-written with fellow parliamentarian Baroness Molly Meacher, Clegg says there is evidence that medicinal cannabis can alleviate and aid chronic pain, anxiety, seizures and nausea.

"Cannabis has low toxicity and is much safer than many established medicines, not to mention two legal recreational drugs, alcohol and tobacco," the report reads.

Clegg and Meacher add that there is 'moderate evidence' that cannabis helps people suffering from sleep disorders, stimulates appetite in chemotherapy patients, and even helps with 'post-traumatic stress disorder and some symptoms of Parkinson’s disease'.

They said: "In this light, the UK’s scheduling, denying any medicinal value for cannabis, looks ever more absurd."

The essay also argues that other drugs laws in the UK are 'irrational'.

Clegg and Meacher write that there is 'no correlation between the severity of the laws that prohibit drugs and the level of drug use'.