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Following a decision from Great Britain\u2019s Home Office, doctors will be permitted to prescribe cannabis oil and other medical marijuana preparations starting on Nov. 1. The change will first take effect in Northern Ireland, but England, Scotland and Wales are to shortly follow.<\/p>\n
As\u00a0BBC News<\/a>\u00a0reports, the\u00a0Northern Ireland Department of Health<\/a>, announcing its policy change, stated: \u201cThe amendments implement the recent expert advice from the chief medical adviser to the U.K. government and the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD) in relation to cannabis-based medicines and will ensure a consistent approach in terms of regulation and patient access across the U.K.\u201d<\/p>\n In addition to\u00a0ACMD<\/a>, the statement said the department coordinated with the central government\u2019s\u00a0Home Office<\/a>,\u00a0Department of Health and Social Care<\/a> and\u00a0Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency<\/a>.<\/p>\n The statement, of course, warned that the changes \u201cdo not pave the way towards legalising cannabis,\u201d and that penalties still apply for unauthorized supply and possession. And while media reports are using the shorthand \u201cmedical marijuana\u201d to refer to what doctors can now prescribe, the Health Department statement carefully refers to \u201ccannabis-based medicinal products.\u201d In other words, oils and extracts \u2014 not herbaceous cannabis.<\/p>\n Additionally, regular general practice doctors will not be allowed to prescribe medical cannabis products. Only specialist doctors will have the authority, and their prescription decisions will be made on a case-by-case basis granted to patients who aren\u2019t able to find relief from other medicines.<\/p>\n The new U.K. cannabis policy was simultaneously announced by Home Secretary Sajid Javid. According to the\u00a0New York Times<\/a>, Javid said, \u201cHaving been moved by heartbreaking cases involving sick children, it was important to me that we took swift action to help those who can benefit from medicinal cannabis.\u201d<\/p>\n The British government\u00a0officially pledged<\/a>\u00a0in July to make medical cannabis products available on prescription by year\u2019s end. The decision came after 12-year-old epilepsy-sufferer Billy Caldwell of Belfast was granted an \u201cemergency license\u201d allowing him to be treated with cannabis medications by Northern Ireland\u2019s Health Department. He had had earlier been previously granted a temporary license by the Home Office allowing him access to cannabis oil. His mother Charlotte Caldwell said it was the only effective means of controlling his seizures.<\/p>\n Charlotte Caldwell administers cannabis oil to her epileptic son, Billy.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n In a\u00a0related case<\/a>\u00a0across the Irish Sea in England, mother Hannah Deacon of Warwickshire earlier in the year submitted an application to the\u00a0Home Office to allow her six-year-old epileptic daughter Alfie Dingley to use cannabis oil. In March, Deacon and her family and supporters marched on London\u2019s 10 Downing Street, seat of the U.K. government, to personally deliver a petition demanding their right to medicine.<\/p>\n And in Scotland, mom Karen Gray of Edinburgh was similarly pressing the Home Office to allow the use of cannabis oil for her five-year-old epileptic son Murray.<\/p>\n Shortly after the Home Office made its pledge in July, seven-year-old Sophia Gibson of Newtownards, in Northern Ireland\u2019s County Down, became the first person to be granted a long-term license for the use of medicinal cannabis in the U.K.\u00a0under a new \u201cexpert panel\u201d system<\/a>. Gibson suffers from Dravet syndrome, a severe form of epilepsy.\u00a0Caldwell was among those\u00a0asked to sit on the expert panel<\/a>\u00a0which was established to review individual applications for cannabis oil.<\/p>\n With the new Home Office policy, doctors will be able to directly prescribe, without individual case assessment by the central government.<\/p>\n Charlotte Caldwell reacted to the news with undisguised joy. \u201cI\u2019m crying happy tears. It\u2019s been a treasure just out of reach for what seems like forever, but to see it in writing from the government is incredible,\u201d she told the\u00a0Belfast Telegraph<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cThis isn\u2019t about Billy and me, it\u2019s about a nation,\u201d she continued. \u201cOnly relatively recently did our government and country really start to appreciate just how many wee children and people of all ages were affected by the difficulties associated with accessing medicinal cannabis.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cBut once it became clear that it wasn\u2019t just about what was perceived to be a small number of very sick children, and that medicinal cannabis could make a life-changing or life-saving difference to more than a million people, the overwhelming support of the public and the incredible speed of reaction of the Home Secretary has delivered an utterly amazing result.\u201d<\/p>\n As a part of this change, the ACMD (Britain\u2019s relevant authority in the matter) has moved cannabis from Schedule I, for those drugs deemed to have no medical application, to Schedule II, the next less restrictive category. This means that the U.K. (but alas\u00a0not the United States<\/a>) now has a system out of conformity with the UN\u00a0Single Convention<\/a>, the treaty overseeing the international \u201cschedule\u201d regime for controlled substances.<\/p>\n Britain now\u00a0joins the Netherlands<\/a>\u00a0as countries that\u00a0have placed cannabis in Schedule II. The Netherlands\u00a0took the move<\/a>\u00a0in 1976.<\/p>\n But the U.K. is unique in having both \u201cschedules\u201d and \u201cclasses\u201d for controlled substances.\u00a0Under the system created by the U.K.\u2019s 1971 Misuse of Drugs Act,\u00a0cannabis is in the restrictive Class B<\/a>, which carry an unlimited fine and up to five years in prison for simple possession. This rises to a 14-year charge for dealing. And, as\u00a0British media reports make clear<\/a>, this is not going to change.<\/p>\n In 2004, cannabis actually was placed in the less restrictive Class C, but this was reversed by the Home Office in 2008. In 2016, Parliament\u00a0rejected<\/a>\u00a0a petition to have cannabis removed from the classification system altogether.<\/p>\n TELL US,<\/b>\u00a0do you think the U.K. should make medical cannabis available to more of its citizens?<\/p>\n The post The U.K. Approves Prescriptions for Medical Marijuana Products<\/a> appeared first on Cannabis Now<\/a>.<\/p>\n
Following a decision from Great Britain\u2019s Home Office, doctors will be permitted to prescribe cannabis oil and other medical marijuana preparations starting on Nov. 1. The change will first take effect in Northern Ireland, but England, Scotland and Wales are to shortly follow. As\u00a0BBC News\u00a0reports, the\u00a0Northern Ireland Department of Health,Continue Reading<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":190,"featured_media":29878,"comment_status":"false","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3394,4657,50,3395,4720,139,5497,5115,81,4655,978,5244,2190],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29877"}],"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=29877"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29877\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29879,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29877\/revisions\/29879"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29878"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29877"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29877"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29877"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\u2018Heartbreaking Cases\u2019<\/h4>\n
![\"Billy](\"http:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/Billy-Caldwell-Cannabsi-Oil.jpg\")
<\/p>\nTears of Joy<\/h4>\n
\u2018Schedule\u2019 Has Changed, But \u2018Class\u2019 Hasn\u2019t<\/h4>\n
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\nRead More: The U.K. Approves Prescriptions for Medical Marijuana Products<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"