THE CANNABIS CONUNDRUM DRUG MINISTER’S HUSBAND GROWS LEGAL CROP FOR MEDICINES NHS CAN’T GIVE OUT

THE IRONY wasn’t lost on the parents desperate to be allowed to treat their children with medicinal cannabis oil to alleviate seizures.

Paul Kenward, husband of Home Office Minister Victoria Atkins, is MD of British Sugar, a company operating Britain’s biggest cannabis farm – legalised thanks to a special licence from her own department.

The crop at the high-security former tomato greenhouse in Wissington, Norfolk, covers an area equivalent to 23 football pitches and growing it would normally attract a prison sentence of up to 14 years.

But the licence to produce the plant legally – granted before Ms Atkins took up her post – is so that the oil can be used in a new epilepsy drug, epidiolex, being developed by the UK company GW Pharmaceuticals. GW expects clearance from the US Food and Drug Administration soon and is also in the EU licensing process.

But as yet, the drug would not be legal to prescribe in the UK. Ms Atkins has recused herself from speaking about cannabis because of her husband’s involvement.

Two years ago, Mr Kenward gave a defence of the benefits of the drug for children in a newspaper article. ‘The fact that we’re growing a crop that goes into a medicine that helps children who are really ill, with rare forms of epilepsy… are valuable things that we think are worthwhile so altogether it felt like the right thing to do,’ he said.

‘Annually, we will produce enough of this ingredient to treat the equivalent of up to 40,000 children globally.’