The Courier & Advertiser (Fife Edition)
Mother wins medical cannabis fight for son
A mum-of-three has won her long fight to get her five-year-old son prescribed medical cannabis in a bid to stop his chronic epileptic seizures.
Karen Gray’s son Murray suffers from the rare myoclonic astatic epilepsy, and can have 12 seizures a day.
The 43-year-old mum said she felt like she had hit a “brick wall” in her attempts to convince the NHS to provide the treatment for Murray.
Karen, from Edinburgh, flew Murray to Holland last Sunday in a final bid to get access to cannabidiol after saying she could not wait for the UK Government to make it available to the NHS.
However, Murray’s neurologist in Edinburgh at the Royal Hospital for Sick Children revealed they can now prescribe the P1 pupil with Epidiolex.
It is believed the Clermiston Primary School pupil will be the first child in Scotland to be given the drug.
Epidiolex is not licensed in the UK but should be available to prescribe by doctors in Britain and the rest of Europe by mid-2019 if the European Medicines Agency approves it early next year.
It is understood Murray’s neurologist has applied for a licence under special circumstances to help him access the drug now for the first time.
Epidiolex is a purified form of cannabidiol, which is one of the hundreds of molecules found in the marijuana plant.
It contains less than 0.1% of tetrahydrocannabinol, which makes people high.
It is an oral solution with a strawberry flavour that is taken twice a day.
Karen and Murray were flying home yesterday ahead of today’s trip to the hospital to wean the youngster off his current medication before starting with the Epidiolex.
An NHS Lothian spokeswoman said: “We do not discuss individual patients.”