medical marijuana Flashcards
what are the rules for medicinal cannabis in the uk
Patients in the UK can be prescribed medicinal cannabis from today (1 Nov 2018), if it is agreed by a specialist doctor.
what initiated the change in laws on medicinal cannabis
It comes after a summer of campaigning by parents including Charlotte Caldwell, whose son Billy has severe epilepsy.
She went to Canada to procure the cannabis oil she says controls his seizures, but was not allowed to bring it back into the UK.
Her fight to keep the drug led to a policy review by home secretary Sajid Javid who brought in today’s law change after advice from experts on the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs and the UK’s Chief Medical Adviser.
give an example of non-epilepsy patient helped
Other patients who have had to get their cannabis illegally up until now agree.
Faye Jones, from Reading, has rheumatoid arthritis and was put on strong chemotherapy drugs to control the pain.
Discovering cannabis, she said, was like “waving a magic wand” - and after being sofa-bound, she can now can get up, go to the gym, and hold down a successful career as an executive assistant.
But, she says, getting hold of the drug on the black market is “expensive and time consuming. Obviously I have to break the law to acquire my medicine.
give example of how it could harm patient safety having to get cannabis illegally
Carly Barton agrees. A fibromyalgia sufferer from Brighton, she found cannabis ended six years of intense and constant nerve pain.
“I’ve still been in some states, in agony in the dark, meeting people in parks,” she tells Sky News.
“Going to meet people I’ve never met before in abandoned industrial car parks. And in the middle of night in the dead of winter and I’m on a walking stick and I’ve got nothing to protect myself.
“I could handle myself, I could get out of a situation like that. But there are a lot of people a lot more vulnerable than I am, or was, being put in that situation.
“Hopefully some of those patients will be able to go to their doctors or go to the chemists where medicine belongs, and go to a place that’s safer for them to access.”
what do the new nhs england guidelines say
The new NHS England guidelines say doctors should only prescribe cannabis-based medicine if other options have been exhausted, for conditions including rare childhood epilepsy and multiple sclerosis as well as to help deal with nausea from chemotherapy drugs.
Only hospital specialists on the General Medical Council register will be able to write such prescriptions.
why might there be a lot of disappointed people
“But there’s a lot of people who aren’t under consultant care that won’t now have access. Two of the main reasons people use cannabis is for anxiety and depression, and they’re not likely to be under consultant care.
“They’re more likely just to be seeing their GP, and GPs won’t be able to prescribe cannabis based products. So I think there’s going to be a lot of disappointed people.”
how many people are affected by ms in the uk and what proportion of them could get relief from cannabis
“A lot of patients are going to want to access cannabis, they’re going to be sent to their specialist and the specialists are going to be inundated with requests. Really what the government needs to do is allows GPs to prescribe cannabis as well.”
The director for external affairs for MS Society UK, Genevieve Edwards, said: “Today should mark a key milestone for people with MS, which affects more than 100,000 of us in the UK.
“However we’re really concerned that nothing will change in the short term for the one in 10 people with MS who could get relief from pain and muscle spasms by using medicinal cannabis.
what did the home secretary say about the law change
Some are concerned that allowing medicinal cannabis could normalise the drug for recreational use.
The home secretary says this law change is to help “patients with an exceptional clinical need, but is in no way a first step to the legalisation of cannabis for recreational use.”
who can get access to medicinal cannabis
The treatments can be prescribed in cases of
Children with rare, severe forms of epilepsy
Adults with vomiting or nausea caused by chemotherapy
Adults with muscle stiffness caused by multiple sclerosis
which treatments will be prescribed
In practice, experts say this is likely to include pills, capsules and oils, but not smoking cannabis.
Treatments contain varying quantities and ratios of the compounds THC, which makes people feel “high”, and CBD, another compound scientists are investigating for its potential medical benefits.
how did we get to this point
The decision to allow specialist doctors to prescribe medicinal cannabis products follows the high-profile cases of Alfie seven, and Billy, 13.
Both have severe epilepsy which their families say has been markedly improved by cannabis oil treatments that had not been legally available in the UK.
Initially, the Home Office refused requests for a licence for Alfie to use the oil.
Billy’s mother, Charlotte, had cannabis oil that she brought back from Canada confiscated at Heathrow Airport.
Their plight prompted MPs to criticise the “bizarre and cruel” rules over medicinal cannabis.
The boys have since been granted special licences to access their treatments.
outline the progress to get to this point (i.e reviews)
The cases prompted Home Secretary Sajid Javid to announce in June that there would be a review of medicinal cannabis.
That review, which came in two parts, concluded there was evidence medicinal cannabis had therapeutic benefits and that doctors should be able to prescribe the products, provided they met safety standards.
In July Mr Javid confirmed that specialists doctors would be able to prescribe cannabis-derived medicinal products.
what were the rules before
Before today, almost all cannabis-based medicinal products were classed as Schedule One drugs, which means they were judged to have no therapeutic value. Sativex, a treatment containing the cannabis compounds THC and CBD, is one of the few that is already approved.
This meant these products could not be legally prescribed in the UK, and could be accessed only, in rare cases, with a special licence from the Home Office.
Now treatments that meet “appropriate standards” have been reclassified into Schedule Two - those that have a potential medical use.
what negative reactions have there been about the guidelines
Alfie Dingley’s mum, Hannah Deacon, said the guidelines meant people would struggle to access the oil her son had been given because scientific studies had not been carried out on the treatment.
“It’s absolutely gutting and not what my campaign was about.”
Emma Appleby, whose nine-year-old daughter, Teagan, has severe epilepsy, said it was not clear when she will receive medical cannabis.
She also said the guidelines suggested Teagan would be given a weaker form of treatment than doctors had initially suggested to her.
She said: “It’s heart-breaking to watch your child suffer every single day, knowing there’s a product that can help, could help…
what did the dr from ucl say
Dr Michael Bloomfield, from University College London, said the UK’s approach was sensible.
“It’s going to be very hard for doctors to prescribe cannabis-related products to begin with, and I think it’s right that’s the case.
“When we don’t have very strong evidence for any medicine, then it should be hard to prescribe something because we should be prescribing medicines when there’s a very strong evidence base for them.”
