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Cannabis Campaigners' Guide News Database result:
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Scotland: SNP MP claims patients used as guinea pigs in search for legal cannabis Kirsteen Paterson The National Wednesday 08 Jan 2020 Access to the substance was legalised in 2018 after the cases of young patients Alfie Dingley and Billy Caldwell provoked public outcry. Both children suffered frequent seizures as a result of epilepsy but, under UK regulations, their parents were unable to get the cannabis-based treatment to aid them without breaking the law. Despite the change, few have received the prescriptions, medical cannabis is still highly regulated and Cowan and other MPs say the current approach has left patients at the mercy of drug companies. In October he challenged Boris Johnson to “take the necessary action required to ensure” that families can access medical cannabis for their children “legally and at no cost”. While Johnson pledged to “take up the matter personally” with Cowan, the two have not met on the issue. However, Cowan will today sit down with ex-MP Baroness Blackwood – the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Life Science – in Johnson’s stead. The former MP was made a peer and a minister in January last year. Ahead of the talks, the SNP’s Cowan – who represents Inverclyde – said the matter had been “pushed down the pecking order” despite the huge cost to those buying medical cannabis legally or illegally. He said: “Those who are currently sourcing medical cannabis either illegally or legally, but at great expense, face up to their conditions every day and every night. “Any and all delays hit them hardest and yet they are the very people who are being ignored. Their lived experience can bring huge value to the debate and to the solution. “They have been abandoned to find the correct dosage from safe, reliable sources. They have been used as human guinea pigs while pharmaceutical companies churn out less effective and more addictive products. “The system of prescription that was unveiled on the 1st of November 2018 has proven to be completely ineffective and GPs are still untrained and therefore unwilling to prescribe. “I shall be interested to hear what Baroness Blackwood has to say but I shall be pushing for a timetable of events that will train GPs in the use of medical cannabis, licence products that are already being imported and used, provide stimulus to develop more products for a wide range of conditions and provide medical cannabis on prescription free under the NHS.” In October, Johnson told Cowan that “people who require the medical use of cannabis are going through desperate difficulties”, adding: “It must be up to doctors to decide when it is in the best interests of their patients to do so.” https://www.thenational.scot/news/18143800.mp-pushes-greater-cannabis-availability-chronic-illness/
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