Professor Alex Stevens from SSPSSR says the government must end the misery for patients with medical conditions that can benefit from cannabis-based medicines.
‘The Home Secretary’s decision to allow Billy Caldwell to receive the cannabis-based medicine that he needs to treat his epilepsy is welcome. But it comes only after confiscation of the medicine his mother had bought for him led to Billy having seizures so severe that he had to be rushed to hospital. It also raises questions about how the government will handle other similar cases, and about its own hypocrisy on this issue.
‘Many other children, including Alfie Dingley and those represented by the Families 4 Access campaign also suffer due to the government’s refusal to allow the use of medicines derived from cannabis. So far, the government has not allowed them access to the medicine they need.
‘This is despite the fact that the husbands of both the Prime Minister Theresa May and of drugs minister Victoria Atkins profit from the production of cannabis for medical purposes. Theresa May’s husband Philip is a senior executive of an investment firm which is the biggest shareholder in GW Pharma, which grows cannabis in Kent for a different medicine.
‘Victoria Atkins’ husband Paul Kenward is the Managing Director of British Sugar, which grows cannabis under contract for GW Pharma.
‘The government is clearly worried that the medical issue may be used as a wedge to drive through wider reforms on cannabis, as has occurred in other countries.
‘But it should not force families and children to suffer just because it does not want to engage in open discussions of what this country’s laws on cannabis should be.’
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