Cannabis News
Cannabis oil for epilepsy: ‘huge sums of money’
In a time when the cost of living is soaring, Charlotte Caldwell, who campaigned for the use of cannabis oil for epilepsy to keep her son alive, said scores of families pay ‘huge sums of money’ privately to obtain prescriptions.
Back in 2018, her son Billy, 17, from Castlederg, County Tyrone, became the first patient on the NHS in the UK to receive cannabis-based medication. Billy has autism and intractable epilepsy.
After years of campaigning for the cannabis oil prescription, and after often being hospitalized due to almost 400 seizures a day, Billy was approved and has now been seizure-free for over a year.
In 2018, the Caldwells played a leading role in a campaign that led to changes in the law allowing certain patients access to treatment.
Medical cannabis was legalised, but since then only three prescriptions have been written for it on the NHS.
According to Ms. Caldwell, obtaining a government-funded prescription for medical cannabis has been daunting, cumbersome, and opaque. Many families have resorted to private health care or risked the black market to obtain it.
Cannabis oil for epilepsy: 1.4 million people using the Black Market
In the UK, there are 1,486 government-funded prescriptions for medical cannabis four years after legalisation.
“While I am delighted that there is now a route to affordable and reliable medical cannabis treatment in the UK, I am saddened that it remains a complex and at times opaque process.” said the Castlederg resident.
However, 60 paediatric epilepsy patients are estimated to be unable to obtain medical cannabis covered by the NHS, and some are reported to be paying up to £2,000 a month to access it through private healthcare.
Around 1.4 million Britons use black market cannabis to treat medical conditions, it is estimated.
Manufacturers: 'Put your medicine where your mouth is'
As part of her campaign, Ms. Caldwell is also asking medical cannabis companies to provide paediatric epilepsy patients with free medicine while they are going through the process.
“While I am delighted that there is now a route to affordable and reliable medical cannabis treatment in the UK, I am saddened that it remains a complex and at times opaque process.
“Four years on from having Billy’s medicine confiscated from me at Heathrow Airport, I want to share the learnings of my experience with other families, for whom the journey need not be so fraught with complication, heartache, and vast personal expense.
“I am also calling on medical cannabis manufacturers, who do so well out of private prescriptions, to put their medicine where their mouth is by gifting medical cannabis to patients seeking NHS funding.
“This would immediately relieve the huge financial burden faced by patients and their families, during which time I hope to help them navigate the complicated approval process.”
