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Six-year-old Alfie Dingley, hoisted on his dad\u2019s shoulders, was at the head of a small march that advanced on 10 Downing Street, the seat of Great Britain\u2019s government, on March 20. Holding banners reading \u201cAlfie\u2019s Hope,\u201d marchers supported the boy as he presented a petition demanding he be granted a special license to use medical cannabis products to treat his epilepsy.<\/p>\n
The petition, signed by more than 370,000 people, was delivered by Dingley and his mother Hannah Deacon. As the\u00a0Manchester Evening News<\/a>\u00a0notes, the delegation also included the family\u2019s chief ally in Parliament \u2014 Jeff Smith, representing the Manchester suburb of Withington, who is an outspoken advocate for a sweeping overhaul of Britain\u2019s drug laws.<\/p>\n When they arrived at 10 Downing Street, the family says they met the Prime Minister Theresa May and Minister of State Nick Hurd,\u00a0in a recent Facebook post<\/a>, who assured them a resolution would be reached.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have now been told that if our doctor applies for a license on compassionate grounds that they will expedite the process as quickly as possible,\u201d the post read. \u201cThey cannot assure us of the outcome which is frustrating\u2026 \u00a0however we hope very much so that the outcome will be favourable as we have so much influential support now and also proven by doing the trial in Holland that Alfie needs this medicine desperately.\u201d<\/p>\n The young Dingley suffers up to 150 seizures per month. His attacks decreased dramatically, both in number and severity, when the family\u00a0traveled to the Netherlands last September<\/a>\u00a0to allow him to be treated with cannabis oil. But since he has been back home, and without access to the medicine, he has again been \u201cdeteriorating,\u201d his family told the\u00a0London Times<\/a>.<\/p>\n In February, Britain\u2019s\u00a0Home Office turned down the family\u2019s first request for permission to use the cannabis oil preparation. An official Home Office statement said cannabis oil \u201ccannot be practically prescribed, administered or supplied to the public.\u201d<\/p>\n But this resulted in embarrassing media coverage, and earlier this month, the Home Office said it was considering allowing a special trial program to treat Dingley. However, it emphasized that \u201cno decisions have been made.\u201d Policing Minister Nick Hurd said he was \u201chugely sympathetic\u201d to the child and his family, and was \u201cdetermined to explore every option.\u201d<\/p>\n But the family decided to press the matter rather than patiently wait while the boy\u2019s health is at stake. Deacon told the\u00a0BBC News<\/a>: \u201cThis isn\u2019t a time for bureaucracy \u2014 this is a time for compassion. I don\u2019t want to break the law by going to Holland and bringing his medical cannabis into the UK illegally. And why should I have to do that?\u201d<\/p>\n\n Alfie has been hospitalized three times over the past month due to the severity of his symptoms, according to multiple reports.<\/p>\n Also accompanying Alfie\u2019s family in the march on Downing Street was Sir Patrick Stewart, the respected British actor famous for his role as Captain Jean-Luc Picard in\u00a0\u201cStar Trek: The Next Generation.\u201d Sir Patrick himself uses medicinal cannabis products<\/a>\u00a0to treat his arthritis while living at his home in California.<\/p>\n Alfie\u2019s case seems particularly ironic given the recent news that the British firm\u00a0GW Pharmaceuticals\u2019<\/a> globe-spanning operations\u00a0have actually made the United Kingdom the\u00a0world\u2019s top exporter<\/a>\u00a0of legal cannabis. Its industrial-scale cultivation facilities in Norfolk are producing cannabis to make pharmaceutical products, and for export to laboratories and universities around the world. GW is licensed by the Home Office to produce for \u201cresearch and development\u201d purposes.<\/p>\n One typical commentary, in the UK\u2019s progressive news outlet\u00a0The Canary<\/a>, called the denial of Alfie\u2019s right to medicine a \u201ctwisted double standard\u201d that betrayed \u201cbreathtaking hypocrisy\u201d on the part of the British government.<\/p>\n \u201cAlthough the UK government does not recognise cannabis-derivatives as \u2018having any medicinal benefit\u2019, it will happily allow British companies to profit from using them in medication abroad,\u201d the Canary report stated. And it pointed out that the husband of Home Office Minister Victoria Atkins is personally profiting from GW cannabis cultivation. Atkins is married to Paul Kenward \u2014 the managing director of\u00a0British Sugar<\/a>, which runs the Norfolk greenhouse operations under contract to GW Pharmaceuticals.<\/p>\n TELL US,<\/b>\u00a0do you think the UK will legalize marijuana any time soon?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n The post Sick Child\u2019s Petition Pressures UK Gov\u2019t to Legalize\u00a0<\/a> appeared first on Cannabis Now<\/a>.<\/p>\n
Six-year-old Alfie Dingley, hoisted on his dad\u2019s shoulders, was at the head of a small march that advanced on 10 Downing Street, the seat of Great Britain\u2019s government, on March 20. Holding banners reading \u201cAlfie\u2019s Hope,\u201d marchers supported the boy as he presented a petition demanding he be granted aContinue Reading<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":190,"featured_media":24740,"comment_status":"false","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[50,216,53,415,2190],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24739"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/190"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24739"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24739\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24741,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24739\/revisions\/24741"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24740"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24739"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24739"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24739"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Alfies](\"http:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/Alfies-march.jpg\")
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\nRead More: Sick Child\u2019s Petition Pressures UK Gov\u2019t to Legalize\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"