Review into use of medicinal cannabis
Current legal position ‘not satisfactory’
HEALTH: Home Secretary Sajid Javid has announced a review of the medicinal use of cannabis which could lead to patients in the UK being prescribed drugs derived from the banned plant.
He spoke in the wake of a series of appeals from parents who want access to medications which can alleviate epilepsy and other illnesses in children.
HOME SECRETARY Sajid Javid has announced a review of the medicinal use of cannabis which could lead to patients in the UK being prescribed drugs derived from the banned plant.
Mr Javid announced the move in a statement to the House of Commons in the wake of a series of appeals from parents who want their children to be able to access medications which can alleviate epilepsy and other illnesses.
The Home Secretary announced that he had authorised a licence to be issued yesterday for six-year-old Alfie Dingley, after his mother said she had been waiting three months for Prime Minister Theresa May to fulfil a personal assurance that he would be allowed to receive cannabis oil.
Speaking to the House of Commons, Mr Javid stressed that the class B drug would remain banned for recreational use.
Mr Javid told MPs that the review would be held in two parts.
The first, led by chief medical officer Sally Davies, will make recommendations on which cannabis-based medicines might offer patients real medical and therapeutic benefits.
The Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs will consider in the second part of the review whether changes should be made to the classification of these products on an assessment of “the balance of harms and public health needs”.
He told MPs: “We have seen in recent months that there is a pressing need to allow those who might benefit from cannabisbased medicines to access them.”
Mr Javid said that since becoming Home Secretary in April, it had become clear to him that the current legal position on medicinal cannabis was “not satisfactory for the parents, not satisfactory for the doctors, and not satisfactory for me”.
But he insisted: “This step is in no way a first step to the legalisation of cannabis for recreational use. This Government has absolutely no plans to legalise cannabis and the penalties for unauthorised supply and possession will remain unchanged.”
The announcement of the review came just days after Mr Javid intervened to permit the use of cannabis oil to treat severely epileptic 12-year-old Billy Caldwell, who had been admitted to hospital with seizures after supplies his mother had brought from Canada were confiscated at Heathrow.
THERE WILL be many surprised that a senior statesman like William Hague is at the forefront of those now advocating the relaxation of cannabis laws – and the more liberal and regulated approach pursued by countries like Canada.
After all, the former Richmond MP and exForeign Secretary was long regarded as a Tory traditionalist when it came to law and order. That he now believes the war against cannabis is lost, and akin to the Army trying to win back the Empire, is a stark assessment.
Yet Lord Hague and likeminded individuals have not yet demonstrated how this more relaxed approach will reduce drug dependency and help to curtail those criminal gangs whose supply of narcotics causes so much human misery. This argument is still to be won.
However, there’s a world of difference between this criminality and the availability of cannabis oil to epileptics like Billy Caldwell, the 12-year-old at the centre of the current controversy. Frankly, it should not have been down to the Home Office to rule on this case as it faces calls to intervene on others. The use of cannabis for medical purposes should be for the Department of Health, and Home Secretary Sajid Javid alluded to this when he set out the terms of his policy review to MPs.
If this principle was already applied, it would not have required Mr Javid’s hasty intervention when Billy was left critically ill after customs officials at Heathrow Airport confiscated cannabis oil that was being brought into the country by Billy’s mother, Charlotte. She’s not a criminal – she was only doing the best for her son – and the law should do more to reflect this distinction.