FURY AT JOHNSON’S BROKEN PROMISE ON CANNABIS DRUG PM reneges on vow to discuss making CBD oil freely available on NHS
MP’S ANGER OVER SNUB TO EPILEPTIC KIDS
Boris Johnson has U-turned on a promise to discuss the use of medical cannabis to treat epileptic children.
The Prime Minister vowed to take up the issue personally with Scottish MP Ronnie Cowan in October in response to a Commons question captured on Parliamentary TV.
But more than two months later, the SNP politician has been told he will only be granted a meeting with junior health minister Baroness Blackwood.
Medical guidelines published by the Nat ional Inst itute of Clinical Excellence (NICE) last yea r s t a t ed that medical cannabis drugs should be available on the NHS.
But parents, including Scots mu m Lisa Quarrell, claim they have been forced to break the law and pay thousands of pounds to access medication such as Bedrolite.
Inverclyde MP Cowan is v ice- chai r of the Al l - Par t y Parliamentary Group on medical cannabis under prescription.
He said: “Following on from my question to the Prime Minister on October 23 regarding the provision of medical cannabis on prescription, I have now been offered a meeting with Baroness Blackwood in her capacity as the parliamentary under-secretary of state for life science.
“Obviously, as my question was addressed to the Prime Minister and he indicated at the time that he ‘will take it up personally with him…’, I would have preferred a conversation with him directly but these are the hoops that
MP Ronnie Cowan asked Boris Johnson why many families were being forced to break the law to get access to medical cannabis, despite the Government giving assurances it would opposition backbenchers like me have to jump through.
“Maybe most disturbing is not that I have been pushed down the pecking order, but that it will have taken 78 days to get this far.
John Ferguson
be made available legally and at no cost.
In response, the PM said: “I think it is right we have changed the way we do things. The chief medical officer and
NHS England have made it clear that cannabisbased products can be prescribed for medicinal use.
“It must be up to doctors to decide when t reat her seven-year-old son Cole’s epilepsy.epilepsy The former police officer risked jail when she began smuggling drugs from the Netherlands to treat his seizures.
Mum-of-two Lisa claims her GP has been keen to take over the cost, but has been told the NICE guidelines don’t cover Scotland.
THE COMMONS PLEDGE.. BEFORE THE U-TURN
it is in the best interests of their patients to do so.”
He then told Ronnie: “Can I invite him since I can tell that my answer is not satisfying him, can I invite him, I will take it up personally with him and also with the secretary of state for health so that he gets the satisfaction he needs and more importantly so his constituent gets the reassurance that they need.”