Professor Bobby Smyth:

Perhaps my issue with it is the reference to it as a "medicine". Once you say something is a medicine, it has to have proven effectiveness and a proven safety profile. Unfortunately for the cannabis plant, I do think it will ever reach those criteria. I see cannabis more as an alternative therapy. Many people are passionate about a whole range alternative therapies, such a homoeopathy and crystal therapy, and they will swear by their chosen treatment. I think cannabis falls in that domain. I do not see it as a genuine medicine in and of itself. We currently have Sativex, which is recognised as a medicine and contains THC and CBD, which are obviously cannabinoids derived from the cannabis plant.