Members of the United Kingdom Parliament joined medical cannabis activists for a “cannabis tea party” outside Parliament as part of their efforts to legalize medical cannabis throughout the nation, according to an Independent report. Liberal Democrat MP Layla Moran joined Labour MPs Paul Flynn and Tonia Antoniazzi and members of the United Patients Alliance in the demonstration, where cannabis-infused edibles were displayed openly and some activists smoked joints near the House of Commons.
Flynn, an 82-year-old member of Parliament who has introduced a bill in the House of Commons, called the failure by his colleagues in government to pass medical cannabis legislation “political cowardice.”
“They are afraid of being accused to going to pot,” he said in the report. “I’m afraid governments get brownie points for appearing to act tough.”
In a Wales Online report, Flynn remarked that Queen Victoria used cannabis “every month of her life” as cannabis was legal medicine in Britain until 1973.
“There are six or seven states in Europe where it’s possible to use cannabis medicinally but we’ve forgotten that this is the oldest medicine in the world – it’s been used for 5,000 years at least,” he said in the interview, adding that “the tide of world opinion” is shifting in favor of medical cannabis use.
MPs are expected to take on Flynn’s proposal in February, but it will unlikely gain any traction without federal government support.