FOR MY BRITAIN IT LEGAL
I FIRST questioned why medical cannabis was illegal about 10 years ago when I was the chairwoman of a mental health trust – and our severely ill patients told me they regularly took the drug.
They said it made them feel human, alive.why, I thought, should our very sick patients be criminalised for helping themselves to feel better?
On entering the House of Lords, I became the founder chairwoman of the All Party Parliamentary Group for Drug Policy Reform.
We undertook an inquiry into cannabis as a medicine.
Through our work I came to realise that cannabis can transform the lives of people with a wide range of serious and chronic disabling conditions.
Yet these patients live in fear of being discovered by the police.the fear of
punishment is bad
prescriptions are still at such high levels when medical cannabis could be a much safer and more cost-effective alternative.
“I have been given steroid injections for the pain in the UK. Last year I had eight injections into my fingers and knuckles which is about as painful as anything one can imagine.
“I have never experienced anything like it.”
He added: “The current system means that cannabis can only be prescribed in the UK almost exclusively for extreme enough, but the biggest fear is their medicine will be seized.
The inclusion of cannabis in the UN Conventions as an illegal drug was a grotesque mistake.the decision has no evidential basis. It was the result of a US initiative based on a racial political agenda.
Alfie Dingley, eight, from Kenilworth,warwickshire, was having 3,000 seizures a year and weekly hospital admissions on prescribed drugs.
That was at vast cost to the NHS – until his mother Hannah Deacon, 40, found cannabis in the Netherlands. Today he takes cannabis only and his seizures are controlled.
Hundreds of thousands of patients in the UK could benefit from cannabis.
Billions of pounds of NHS funds could be saved.
cases such as life-threatening epilepsy. But when it is not life threatening, like my hands, I see no reason why the legislation is not widened out to allow doctors to prescribe it.”
Sir Patrick’s comments come as a new poll shows that one in three UK doctors believe medical cannabis should be prioritised as an alternative to opioid-based medicines.
The poll was carried out by Sapphire Medical Clinics, the first dedicated medical cannabis clinic in the UK registered by the Care Quality Commission.
Sir Patrick, who has recently completed filming the first season of a new Star Trek series, Star Trek: Picard, was speaking ahead of the release of new guidance by government drug watchdog Nice.
Experts expect the new guidance to loosen regulations regarding treatment for seizures, but to find it is not cost effective as an alternative for pain relief.
Around 30 countries have given the green light to medical cannabis, as well as a handful of others that allow the drug to be used under strict guidelines.