BOY ALLOWED CANNABIS OIL FOR EPILEPSY
THE Home Office’s emergency licence allowing a severely epileptic boy cannabis oil has prompted calls for wider access to the medication.
Home Secretary Sajid Javid yesterday permitted 12-year-old Billy Caldwell one of the bottles his mother had confiscated by airport officials after she tried to bring them into the UK from Canada.
The temporary victory led to the family of Alfie Dingley, six, saying it would be “unconscionably cruel” to further delay his access to medical marijuana while a former drugs minister criticised Theresa May for blocking law changes and having a “pathological fear” of cannabis.
Alfie’s mother, Hannah Deacon, from Kenilworth, Warwickshire, applauded the success for Billy but said she has appealed to the Home Office to grant a licence for her son to treat his rare epilepsy.
The Prime Minister said on April 18 an application for Alfie would be reviewed “speedily” but two months later Ms Deacon said an outcome is yet to materialise.
“It would be unconscionably cruel if the Home Office delay any further in issuing our medical team the licence they need to administer medical cannabis to our son Alfie,” she said.
“The Home Office asked us not to seek publicity while our application was being put together and considered. We have complied with that request. But we’re now approaching three months. The time for process and bureaucracy has passed.”
Former drugs minister Norman Baker described the confiscation of the oil brought into Heathrow Airport by Charlotte Caldwell on Mon- day as “cruel and inhumane”, and renewed calls for a law change.
“It became very clear to me in my time as drugs minister that cannabis has useful medical properties and, indeed, that it is the only substance that works for some people, a situation widely recognised in other countries,” the Liberal Democrat said.
“While in office I called for a change into the law to recognise this medicinal value but I was obstructed all the way by Theresa May as Home Secretary, who has some sort of pathological fear of cannabis.”
Ms Caldwell, of Castlederg in Co Tyrone, Northern Ireland, vowed to keep up the fight to get the necessary cannabis medication for others in the UK.
Billy’s future access to the treatment also remains uncertain, with the Home Office only granting a licence for one of the seven bottles confiscated.