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Cannabis Campaigners' Guide News Database result:
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UK: Expert panel will be set up to advise on medicinal cannabis cases Alan McGuinness and Lucia Binding Sky News Monday 18 Jun 2018 An expert panel of clinicians will be set up to advise the government on applications to prescribe cannabis-based medications. Speaking in the Commons, Home Office minister Nick Hurd said the cases of Billy Caldwell and Alfie Dingley had "highlighted the need for the Government to explore the issue further and our handling of these issues further". Mr Hurd told MPs he has asked chief medical officer Dame Sally Davies to begin work on the panel. It comes after the mother of 12-year-old Billy, who has acute epilepsy, demanded a meeting with home secretary Sajid Javid and health secretary Jeremy Hunt over her son's case. Charlotte Caldwell has been using the banned medication - which contains the psychoactive substance tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) - to help manage Billy's condition since 2016. Ms Caldwell, from County Tyrone in Northern Ireland, said she was "over the moon" after Billy was given a 20-day supply of the drug on Sunday after the Home Office backed down on banning it. The 50-year-old said she wants to shine a "bright light on the pain and injustice suffered by thousands of children" with similar conditions. She is demanding a meeting with Mr Javid and Mr Hunt to ensure that "no more medicine is confiscated". Ms Caldwell was stopped at Heathrow Airport when she attempted to bring medicinal cannabis into the UK from Canada. The drug was confiscated at customs. However, the Home Office later backed down on the ban and Billy began his treatment on Sunday. Ms Caldwell said the 12-year-old had responded well to the treatment and is now at home after being treated in hospital. "The fact Billy has now been discharged and is with me is testament to the effectiveness of the treatment and underlines just how vital it is that every child and every single family in our country affected is due to have immediate access to the same medication," she said. Ms Caldwell said the matters should be put under the remit of the Department of Health and not the Home Office. "The Home Office may be good at conducting its core responsibilities, but it has neither the clinical understanding, nor the innate compassion required, to address matters relevant to children's medication policy," Ms Caldwell said. She called for the Department of Health to "implement a programme that provides immediate access to the medication Billy so desperately needs." Prime Minister Theresa May addressed Billy's case as she announced a boost in NHS funding, pouring cold water on the idea of a full-scale review of laws on medicinal cannabis. She suggested the government will only look into how the current system of licences for use in individual cases operates, rather than looking at the law more widely. "Do we need to look at these cases and consider what we've got in place? Yes," said Mrs May. Charlotte Caldwell, who seeking a cannabis oil supply to treat her sick son 12-year-old Billy (left) "But what needs to drive us in all these cases has to be what clinicians are saying about these issues. "There's a very good reason why we've got a set of rules around cannabis and other drugs, because of the impact that they have on people's lives, and we must never forget that." Labour's shadow home secretary Diane Abbott said the public was growing "increasingly dismayed" with the government's handling of the issue, and said nobody could use cannabis oil recreationally. Fellow Labour MP Tonia Antoniazzi (Gower) said cannabis-based medicines should be given to everyone who needs them, citing two young children in her constituency who could benefit. "The Government has a duty to protect these patients and sufferers. When will they act?" she asked. "Why is the Government stuck in the Middle Ages?" Sir Mike Penning, a Conservative former minister, said in the Commons that he would personally lead a delegation to get medicines to treat six-year-old Alfie's epilepsy if the Warwickshire boy had not received them by Wednesday. https://news.sky.com/story/expert-panel-will-be-set-up-to-advise-on-medicinal-cannabis-cases-11408875
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