Sometimes all that’s needed for a policymaker to change their mind on marijuana legalization is a quick trip to a place where regulation is in place and the apocalypse has not yet arrived. Such was the case when members of UK parliament (MPs) made an exploratory visit to Canada’s rapidly evolving legal marijuana industry. The British politicians came back enthused, with one of them from a political party that hasn’t even declared itself in favor of legalization saying that the UK could shake off cannabis prohibition within a year
“I want the market legalised, regulated and taken away from crime gangs,” said that individual, Labour Party MP David Lammy, in a BBC Newsbeat documentary that captured the trip. “I want to see the strength of the stuff reduced, labelled and properly organised in this country.”
Lammy was joined on the excursion by a number of his peers from various political parties, who all financed their own trip. Sir Norman Lamb of the Liberal Democrats (who have taken an official pro-legalization stance) made history on the trip by becoming the first currently serving British member of parliament to take a cannabis-derived product in public, as documented by the BBC cameras.
Sir Norman also shared that he thought it was “ridiculous” that he had to dispose of his remaining cannabis oil before flying home. The politician says that he uses the oil to sleep and for relaxation.
Happily, not everyone is flushing their medicinal marijuana rather than sending it off to Great Britain. In June, Canada’s Tilray, Inc. sent out company’s first large shipment of cannabis oil to the UK, a THC-CBD blend oral solution.
But though medicinal marijuana has been legal in Great Britain since November