Cannabis News
Will Britain legalise cannabis?
Will Britain legalise cannabis? It remains difficult for patients in the NHS to access medical cannabis under the British government, but its impacts on the NHS and the economy as a whole are promising. As the medicinal cannabis industry is expected to top $1.3 billion by 2024, the new prime minister cannot ignore the explosion of interest in and potential benefits of this drug.
Cannabis-based medicines have shown to be effective in treating a variety of physical and psychological disorders, including schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. Apart from their economic and job creation benefits, cannabis-based medications have also demonstrated general health benefits. Nevertheless, the sector requires the sanction and support of the UK government in order to be able to use these products more widely.
Children and adults in the NHS system are both extremely ill and unable to afford either the cannabis-based products being prescribed by some clinicians in the private sector for medicinal use or any further delay by the government in opening up a proper discussion of their effectiveness and uses.
Although neither of the new candidates for PM has mentioned cannabis in their manifestos, Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak are no strangers to the subject. A portion of Sunak’s Future Fund money was invested in a CBD oil company when he was Chancellor of the Exchequer, and Truss endorsed cannabis as a student. However, whoever becomes PM must look further, open the debate, and implement awareness and education campaigns to make cannabis more accessible.
There is currently a lack of information and research surrounding medical cannabis, despite the fact that a number of products are already available whose benefits are well documented, especially in the field of severe treatment-resistant paediatric epilepsy. There have been fewer than 10 NHS prescriptions for CBPMs in primary care since November 2018 according to data from the NHS Business Services Authority (March 2019).
As part of a review led by the National Medical Director and the Chief Pharmaceutical Officer for England in March 2019, they examined barriers to clinically appropriate prescribing of medical cannabis. According to their findings, there is a lack of both evidence-based research into cannabis’ efficacy and long-term effects, as well as doctoral education.
A number of cannabis products are available in the public and private sectors that are not licensed, so prescribing doctors must go through a series of hoops in order to do so, and they must also assume liability in accordance with GMC guidelines on the prescribing and use of unlicensed drugs. Additionally, some non-cannabinoid treatments that are being prescribed, again for epilepsy, are also unlicensed, and some have devastating side effects, and yet they are being used.
Will Britain legalise cannabis? A new PM may be the answer
So will Britain legalise cannabis? As soon as a new Prime Minister takes office, it is incumbent upon the UK government to establish and fund independent and extensive research programmes into cannabis-related medications. Companies, including Akanda, are investing in research and development of safe and effective drugs that may not be commercially viable to produce until there is a consensus in the medical fraternity and a directive for NHS doctors that they may go ahead and prescribe cannabis-based medical products.
Given the current cost of medical cannabis and the lack of research and evidence, it is unlikely that these medicines will be funded by the NHS anytime soon, depriving a whole patient population of access to solutions for a wide range of illnesses. Until there are more products that are licenced and made commercially available, these cannabis-related medications will remain expensive and inaccessible to the vast majority of Brits. The UK decision makers only need to look at countries like Canada, Germany, and Australia that have thriving medical cannabis markets if domestic research and evidence are not sufficient.
The licensing of cannabis products for the NHS will bring more manufacturing jobs, lower the overall cost of the product in the UK and ultimately benefit many patients and the economy of the country. Safe and cost-effective long term relief from difficult conditions such as chronic pain are highly sought after in the current market. With proper regulation and support from above, many companies nationwide, such as Celadon Pharmaceuticals PLC are already well positioned to ramp up the manufacture of their existing product offering, that currently is only supplied to private clinics.
A spokesperson for Celadon said: “Currently cannabis-based medicines remain very expensive and generally are for long-term use, whereas current NHS funding for unlicensed medication is for lower-cost products and short-term use only. We would love to see the government license cannabis-based medicines so that funding is more readily available from a large pool of money that’s currently being spent on addictive opioid painkillers.”
As privately dispensed cannabis is expensive and sometimes difficult to obtain, this creates a dangerous and unregulated parallel market – the black market – where more desperate patients end up trying to find some relief from their serious conditions.
It is the responsibility of either Truss or Sunak, whoever it may be, to exercise some power and bring much-needed change to this modern sector of medicine.
