Cannabis medicines on the horizon
GETTY Chief Medical Officer Sally Davies has triggered the next stage of medicinal cannabis review
The verdict from England’s Chief Medical Officer, Professor Dame Sally Davies, has triggered the next stage of a review into making the drugs legally available. The Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs will advise ministers within three weeks whether to act on her recommendation that cannabis-related products should be rescheduled so that doctors can prescribe them. There are no plans to legalise cannabis for recreational use or change the penalties for unauthorised supply and possession. The action follows high profile cases including severely epileptic 12-year-old Billy Caldwell, from Northern Ireland.
He hit the headlines after his mother Charlotte had bottles of the cannabis oil she said transformed his life confiscated at Heathrow airport customs when she tried to import them from Canada. When the boy then suffered multiple seizures that put him in a critical condition, an emergency licence was granted for him to have the oil. Six-year-old epileptic Alfie Dingley’s family has also been fighting for access to cannabis oil he was allowed in the Netherlands but banned from receiving in the UK. Home Secretary Sajid Javid said last night: “Recent cases involving sick children made it clear to me that we needed to take a fresh look at the scheduling of cannabis-related medicinal products.
Cases involving sick children made it clear to me that we needed to take a fresh look Sajid Javi
“I have now asked my independent advisory committee to commence the second stage of this process. “When I have received its advice I will consider what next steps need to be taken.” Dame Sally’s review of recent research, published yesterday, stated: “There is conclusive evidence of the therapeutic benefit of cannabis-based medicinal products for certain medical conditions and reasonable evidence of therapeutic benefit in several other medical conditions.” Problems where evidence suggests the products can help include chronic pain, epilepsy and chemotherapy-induced nausea.
Currently the products are in drug Schedule 1, defined as having “little or no therapeutic potential” which means they cannot be prescribed. Drugs with some potential benefit are in Schedules 2 to 5, in descending order of restrictions, but can still be held legally only by people with a valid prescription from a registered medical practitioner. Dame Sally says that cannabis-based medicines should be rescheduled, possibly to Schedule 2 pending further work. “Moving these drugs out of Schedule 1 would allow them to be prescribed under controlled conditions by registered practitioners for medical benefit,” she said.