In favour of the weed

In the summer of 1987, before starting medical school, I worked in Bristol as a community service volunteer helping a young man with multiple sclerosis. His usual carer was away and I stepped in just in time to escort him on a trip to London that his old work friends had organised. Before his illness he had been a successful talent scout for a record company, and his old contacts had arranged a glitzy night out for him and his London friends, which included a limo, front seats at a Prince concert, and back stage passes.

The most disabling and distressing …