Medicinal cannabis UK: Expert comments on future use – ‘Shame it’s taken so long’

Bill Turnbull discusses benefits of medicinal cannabis

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During the interview Toby Webster discussed the approach of the CDPRG and discussed what they believe.

“We’re in support of more clinical trials and for the industry to sponsor those clinical trials and to cooperate with the NHS to run those clinical trials – that would answer the questions that need answering before it becomes a mainstream part of medicine.

“We think that it’s right for the UK to try and be innovative here to solve problems in using cannabis medicines, but we think they should take this opportunity to use the UK’s life sciences expertise to produce new medicines.”

One of the hurdles facing medicinal cannabis reform is convincing the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency, or MHRA for short. On this Webster had this to say: “The MHRA can be creative, innovative, but they need to stick to the same high standards they have in other areas.”

While convincing the MHRA is one of the hurdles facing medicinal cannabis reform, it isn’t the largest one; medicinal cannabis has a lot of stigma due to the war on drugs which has held research back.

Amber Moore spoke on this: “There is a stigma that has held things up, but we’ve managed to move forward.

“Because of the stigma that was attached to [medicinal cannabis] it was very hard to research…that’s really held back our understanding of cannabis. In the meanwhile, you’ve had millions of individuals all over the world trying this stuff at home and seeing some benefit.”

As a result, Moore said: “The interest in cannabis as a medicine has been very grass roots and so we’ve had all this demand but the research hasn’t come with it.”

The reason why reform and availability of medicinal cannabis in the UK has been more difficult is not just down to the stigma, but the way our health system works.

In the UK, as the money for a new medicine comes out of the public purse, there has to be a financial justification for the NHS to approve a new treatment.

“The NHS have to justify prescribing a medicine that doesn’t have the same standard of efficacy and evidence that other medicines would and obviously they can’t create an exception cannabis otherwise this opens a dangerous door,” said Moore.

In contrast, in institutions with private healthcare systems there is more flexibility.

Moore says this “gives the patient more flexibility which is why in other jurisdictions there’s more access to these unlicensed cannabis medicines because the patient is paying for it anyway [as] there doesn’t have to be a financial justification”.

However, times have changed; in recent years there has been a cannabis renaissance in the UK as more individuals discover the health benefits of medicinal cannabis.

Now the research is catching up scientists and patients are discovering that cannabis can be used to treat or alleviate the symptoms of all manner of conditions including Parkinson’s, depression, epilepsy, anxiety and, possibly, dementia.

Webster warns that while the future is exciting for medicinal cannabis, that it is important that the processes are still gone through: “It’s about quality of evidence”.

Evidence that should have been collected years, if not decades ago.

Such is the stigma that still continues to hang over medicinal cannabis like a perpetual spectre, it is likely there will still be those who believe medicinal cannabis is a greater harm than good despite evidence to the contrary.

Webster agrees noting: “Perhaps if the controls on cannabis had not provided such a barrier to research for a few decades we would have been further ahead and there would have been less frustration. It’s a shame it’s taken so long.”

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