In contrast to the U.K, ‘Every other jurisdiction in the world has set up special regulatory procedures around cannabis because it is completely different from pharmaceutical medicines.’ Cannabis, in contrast to pharmaceutical drugs, is a botanical plant, and like all botanical plants, it consists of hundreds of compounds. This means that it cannot be studied or regulated like pharmaceutical drugs – and neither can any potential safety issues be evaluated in the same way as pharmaceutical drugs. Despite this, the British government has enabled the UK’s cannabis industry to expand and profit by changing UK cannabis law to suit pharmaceutical objectives, while ensuring that cannabis remained illegal to the public.
The British government has no interest in making medical cannabis accessible to the public, or in implementing any policy that would result in authentic cannabis reform. Instead, they have secretly furnished Britain’s medical cannabis industry with the necessary licenses to profit from medical cannabis grown on British soil, thus reaping huge profits – at the expense of the general public.
The issue of profits, as bad as that is, is not what is at stake here – it is our health. But most people don’t know that; most don’t even realise what the government is doing, and would they care if they did? Possibly not. But then again, most people don’t know about the power of cannabis because the media doesn’t report the truth; they seldom do as far as medical cannabis is concerned, and the government often lies – as we are all well aware (e.g. party-gate).Â
When diagnosed with cancer in 2019, I mentioned that I’d heard that cannabis extracts known as Rick Simpson Oil could treat (not cure) cancer with a MacMillan nurse, but was told, “we are not allowed to discuss that.” I was dumbfounded, but other organisations have the same rules, despite the 2018 changes in UK cannabis law.Â
Whereas cannabis reform abroad includes legislation that makes it easy for doctors to prescribe unlicensed cannabis medicines, but the British government’s determination to control the UK’s medical cannabis market means the opposite is happening in the UK. It is reported, for example, that ‘in the few instances when doctors have spoken out on behalf of patients, they have been contacted by Home Office officials and warned to stop stop doing so,’ and the same report states that ‘any doctor or scientist that expresses any interest in medical cannabis in the UK is immediately retained or contracted by GW.’
The overwhelming lack of training is often cited as a reason that health professionals are unwilling to prescribe medical cannabis, but while this may be true, many health care organisations refuse to engage in any discussions about the medical benefits of cannabis or offer patient support for those using medical cannabis, despite the successful outcomes of large clinical trials abroad showing the benefits of medical cannabis in treating the organisation’s specific health condition. Instead, evidence shows that ‘the immediate reaction from all such patient groups is to overlook the evidence of benefit and refer to risks in mental health which, in fact, are very low compared to pharmaceutical products,’ and that ‘the press, unchallenged by politicians in its disproportionate attention to these risks, bears a very heavy responsibility for this stigma and the lack of research’ in Britain.
The British government voted in support of the United Nations’ rescheduling of cannabis in 2020. Removing cannabis from Schedule IV of the 1961 Single Convection on Narcotic Drugs was a decision that was implemented after its members had considered a list of recommendations provided by a scientific committee of the World Health Organisation (WHO). Unfortunately, it appears that this vote and what it implies has failed to impact the UK’s medical cannabis policy.Â
The British government is also guilty of failing to implement any of the recommendations listed in a number of official reports. The All-Party Group for Drug Policy Reform (APPG), for example, published a very detailed review that examined outcomes of the UK’s 2018 changes in cannabis law (2021). Besides reviewing current drug policy regarding medical cannabis, which it found woefully inadequate, the report made a number of recommendations that would facilitate patient access, but to no avail. The APPG report, like many others demanded by the government and paid for by the taxpayer, the reports and their recommendations have been totally ignored.
There can be little doubt that ‘the current system is not working, which means that ‘hundreds of thousands of people are being failed by the UK government and medical community shortcomings.’ It was political corruption that caused the global demonisation and illegalisation of cannabis, and it is political corruption that continues to dictate cannabis laws in the UK. And the reason is money.
