My friend needs cannabis for his MS. That shouldn’t make him a criminal

My friend George is a brilliant composer, music producer and DJ. He is a married father of two small, sweet children. When he moved to London aged 25 from Edinburgh he was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis (MS), a debilitating condition affecting his brain and spinal cord that worsens over time.

Every day George takes two ingredients found in cannabis: CBD and THC. CBD, which he takes in drops three times a day, is legal. But THC, which has psychoactive properties and which he takes either by drinking it in hot chocolate or by vaping, is not.

So every day he breaks the law. He also breaks the law when he buys it from a dealer. George has no choice. Or at least the other options are to be in agony or take heavy doses of opioids — highly addictive toxins.

Every doctor and consultant he sees knows he takes cannabis, and all tacitly condone it. The legality “is not even a point of discussion”. Of fellow sufferers he’s in touch with, “100 per cent take CBD and 75 per cent have to get THC illegally”.

They help in different ways: CBD calms and relaxes. “It’s good for muscles and cramps, it helps me sleep and it’s a natural mood leveller,” he says.

THC helps spasms and fits, which “are generally low-wattage but I am very aware when they happen. I also have trigeminal neuralgia — which is like an epileptic fit in the face and totally debilitating. THC slows it. It turns down the volume in the pain.”

George believes the numbers “self-medicating” with cannabis are far higher than reported.

There are big risks buying putative medicine from criminal gangs, not least “because it’s illegal so there’s no quality control. You don’t know what you’re getting.” I’m all for George being able to get these drugs legally. Who wouldn’t be?

Refugee who joined my son’s school trip

“How was Normandy?” I asked my son when he returned from his school trip.

“Not good.”

Oh. I’d assumed he’d be fascinated by the history of the D-Day landings. But he is sensitive.

“It’s a terrible thing, war,” I counselled. “Young men went through hell ...”

“No,” he broke in. “That bit was interesting. On the way back they found a refugee under our bus. He’d been there 10 hours, clinging on. The police put him in handcuffs. His hands were covered in oil.

“He looked so scared, Mum. I can’t talk about him any more because it makes me want to cry.”

Being ‘the best wife’ is oh so dated

Victoria Beckham addressed an audience at the Forbes Women’s Summit in New York this week, and confessed to wanting to be “the best mother” (commendable) and “the best professional” (commendable, but for the management speak) and also “the best wife” to David Beckham.

Hang on there, what the hell is “the best wife”? When I was a young girl I wanted to be a good writer (“best” would be a stretch for my self-esteem), a good reporter, a good foreign correspondent, but it did not ever occur to me that I should aim to become “a good wife”. And what girl would nurture that as an ambition today?

What does a “good wife” or even “the best wife” do? Does she don a pinny and have supper ready every day?

Does she have a stirred Martini and a big smile? Does she perform all- night sex on birthdays? Or even — damn it, who needs sleep — every day?

Victoria, love, do us all a favour and come back from the Fifties.

Women are still not part of the top table

The other night I was invited to dinner with some esteemed journalists and commentators who were much older than me. Among the four men were a BBC heavyweight and a former broadsheet editor. There were also three women.

Individually these men were charming (BBC man was “delighted” to scribble his signature for a fan). Collectively, the women melted away. We were talked over, interrupted, ignored. It reminded me of being a child, expected to be mute at table. Afterwards my boyfriend said he’d noticed — and he was horrified. Yes, the invisibility of women is still a thing.