British officials have given a second young epilepsy patient special permission to bring medical cannabis into the country in violation of current national drug laws. However, so far, such exemptions appear unlikely to be extended to adults and other sick people for whom cannabis could provide relief, renewing calls for the country\u2019s marijuana laws to be reformed.<\/p>\n
Along with\u00a0Billy Caldwell<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 whose mother forced a stand-off with the British Home Office last month when she publicly and openly flew into Heathrow Airport in London with a vial of cannabis oil from Canada \u2014 the plight of Alfie Dingley, a 6-year-old who suffers up to 150 epileptic seizures a month, has galvanized public support behind reforming the country\u2019s drug laws to legalize medical cannabis.<\/p>\n Cannabis oil high in CBD, or cannabidiol, has been shown to effectively treat brain disorders including epilepsy. Cannabis-derived CBD is the main active ingredient in\u00a0Epidiolex<\/a>, a prescription drug patented by British-based pharma giant GW Pharmaceuticals, which recently received FDA approval for marketing and distribution in the United States.<\/p>\n Celebrities including Patrick Stewart had joined petitions to UK government officials to change laws to allow Dingley to legally use cannabis. But until Charlotte Caldwell, Billy\u2019s mother, forced the issue with her Heathrow gamble last month, those pleas had gone ignored.<\/p>\n Home Secretary Sajid Javid \u2014 seen by some as a possible successor to beleaguered Prime Minister Theresa May \u2014 last month granted the Caldwells a special exemption to UK drug laws to legally use medical cannabis oil after Billy Caldwell was hospitalized following a brace of seizures.<\/p>\n Dingley\u2019s family had petitioned the UK government for permission to use cannabis in April without success. Only after the Caldwell affair generated headlines across the world\u00a0did Javid offer similar special permission to Hannah Deacon<\/a>, Dingley\u2019s mother, to obtain cannabis abroad and bring it into the UK.<\/p>\n According to the BBC,\u00a0Deacon recently traveled through London City Airport from Amsterdam, where she\u2019d obtained the oil, and was allowed to return to her son\u2019s side.<\/p>\n Like Billy, whose condition had improved after receiving cannabis-based treatment in the United States,\u00a0Dingley and his family had been forced to relocate to the Netherlands to obtain marijuana-based medicines.<\/a><\/p>\n Despite GW Pharmaceuticals\u2019 success in creating cannabis-based medicines \u2014 and using cannabis grown in the UK to make these drugs \u2014 cannabis remains a banned substance in the UK for ordinary citizens.<\/p>\n Javid\u2019s ad-hoc exemptions for sick people are seen as the first steps towards a loosening of British drug laws, and possibly even the rescheduling of cannabis.<\/p>\n Health experts and government authorities have been tasked with reviewing British drug laws \u2014 and making a possible recommendation that they be updated.<\/p>\n And Javid\u2019s office has set up a limited program that would allow other patients to apply for exemptions to use cannabis. However, a steep fee \u2014 in excess of $4,000 \u2014 merely to apply has meant that few potential patients have signed up, and have renewed calls for the country\u2019s drug laws to be drastically overhauled.<\/p>\n TELL US<\/strong>,\u00a0do you think the UK should open CBD access to all?<\/p>\n The post Second UK Patient Receives Government Approval to Use Medical Marijuana<\/a> appeared first on Cannabis Now<\/a>.<\/p>\n
British officials have given a second young epilepsy patient special permission to bring medical cannabis into the country in violation of current national drug laws. However, so far, such exemptions appear unlikely to be extended to adults and other sick people for whom cannabis could provide relief, renewing calls forContinue Reading<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"false","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3394,4657,4993,713,50,4994,136,3156,1304,3157,53,139,4655,2190],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27917"}],"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\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27917"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27917\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27918,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27917\/revisions\/27918"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27917"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27917"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27917"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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\nRead More: Second UK Patient Receives Government Approval to Use Medical Marijuana<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"