Share This Article
On 1 November 2018, Sajid Javid outlined plans for CBPMs (cannabis-based products for medicinal use in humans) to be made available.
The initial reaction was sceptical – after over 50 years of prohibition, many thousands of medical cannabis patients and non-medical cannabis consumers alike have been discriminated against for their use, whether they need cannabis or not. At one end of the scale, we have the harmless stoner; at the other, a patient in urgent need of cannabis medicine, possibly with life-threatening issues if the medicine is not given. Still, this medicine is being restricted from those who need it because of a fear of the drug itself in the hands of the public.
In the past year, some patients have been taking matters into their own hands, getting private prescriptions for cannabis for their conditions. Others who couldn’t afford this have continued to rely on the black market or grow their supply, and even some of those I have spoken to with private prescriptions have gone back to illegal supply as costs mounted.
So the latest announcements in UK cannabis legalisation should sound good to the ear – because NICE (National Institute for Health and Care Excellence) guidelines have come out suggesting the NHS should prescribe two CBPMs.
However, let’s dig a little deeper because this is still far, far too restrictive and leaves most patients suffering.
Several suggestions are made in the latest NICE guidelines document (which can be found here). Summarising this, the BBC reports that:
“Doctors will be able to prescribe Epidyolex, for children with two types of severe epilepsy – Lennox Gastaut syndrome and Dravet syndrome – which can cause multiple seizures a day.
Clinical trials have shown the oral solution, which contains cannabidiol (CBD), could reduce the number of seizures by up to 40% in some children.”
Read more
My main bugbear with these new guidelines is that cannabis-based medicine will still not be available for chronic pain on the NHS. This is an area where it is effective, and these new guidelines were called a massive missed opportunity by the End Our Pain campaign.
The guidelines only recommend two drugs manufactured by the same company, GW Pharmaceuticals. They are Sativex (1:1 THC: CBD) and Epidyolex (CBD Dominant).
Ironically, in the new guidelines, price is stated as a cause for concern, and NICE mentioned this had initially restricted the route to the market of CBPMs until GW agreed to lower their cost to the NHS.
Patients, Doctors and indeed NICE themselves should know that the treatment cost per patient is massively marked up when a CBD or a 1:1 strain can be grown at home for a fraction of 1% of the cost once the setup has been paid for:
GW pricing Epidiolex at about £2100 a month has nothing to do with production costs.
— End Prohibition (@afterprohibends) November 11, 2019
Identical products sold in countries with legal medical cannabis cost about £200 per month.
This is simply profiteering off the back of desperate sick people.
But we now have a situation in this country where, by definition, the cannabis sold by GW to the NHS is legal, but other medical cannabis products remain illegal.
So what does this mean?
Your GP can now potentially prescribe you Sativex or Epidolex for MS or certain forms of epilepsy, but nothing else. For that, you’ll need to sign up for a cannabis clinic and obtain a private cannabis prescription.
Genevieve Edwards (director of external affairs at the MS Society) said the approval was “brilliant” but did not go far enough:
“No cannabis-based treatments have been recommended to treat pain, a common symptom of MS,” she said. “Additionally, because Sativex will be funded by local bodies – who might not have the resource they need to prescribe it – even more people could miss out.”
Quote reported in the Guardian
So I’m asking: is the UK Medical Cannabis Legalisation announced last year resulting in patient access? And will we see better access soon for those who need it with appropriate and sensible guidelines?
