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UK: Mother requests return of cannabis oil seized at UK border Damien Gayle The Guardian Thursday 11 Apr 2019 A mother who had £4,600 worth of medical cannabis oil for her daughter seized by UK border guards is asking for it to be returned after she obtained a prescription from a doctor. Emma Appleby was stopped on Saturday as she returned from the Netherlands with the potentially life-saving medication for her nine-year-old daughter, Teagan, who suffers from the rare chromosomal disorder isodicentric 15, as well as Lennox-Gastaut syndrome. Appleby had hoped the oil, which was prescribed by a paediatrician in Rotterdam and paid for through savings and crowdfunding, could help alleviate the suffering of her daughter, who has up to 300 seizures a day. But border guards told her she would have to get a prescription from a UK doctor before she was allowed to bring the oil into the country. She now has that prescription and is calling on the Home Office to release the drugs for her sick daughter. “I’ve done everything that I’ve been asked to do and jumped through every hoop,” Appleby said. “I can’t do any more. I’m exhausted. In the name of compassion I’m pleading with the government to return Teagan’s medicine. Every day that she is without it is a day too many.” Appleby, from Aylesham near Dover, said she had been given no means of contacting the Home Office to request the return of the medicine once she had obtained the prescription, which was written on Wednesday by a private specialist. The Conservative MP Mike Penning, who is co-chairman of the all-party parliamentary group on medical cannabis under prescription, is liaising with officials on her behalf, she said. Teagan has not yet used the oil, but has been treated with Epidiolex, a cannabis-derived epilepsy medicine not yet licensed in the UK but which was prescribed to her on compassionate grounds because of the severity of her condition. It had helped for a while, Appleby said, but its efficacy seemed to have waned. She hopes the oil will have a more potent effect. At the moment, all Appleby can do when her daughter has a seizure is to try to comfort her and, if it continues for too long, to give her powerful rescue medicines such as paraldehyde. That substance stops seizures but it also melts plastic, and Appleby fears its long-term side-effects. The cannabis oil Appleby obtained is the same as that used by Alfie Dingley, whose case emerged last year and who was eventually given a special licence to use it. However, even if the Home Office returns Teagan’s oil, Appleby still worries about what might happen when it runs out. “I’ve only got a three-month supply, so once that’s gone I can’t afford to get another prescription,” she said. “We need the prescription on the NHS as well.” https://www.theguardian.com/society/2019/apr/11/mother-demands-return-cannabis-oil-seized-uk-border
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