Trying to Fool a Nation? - Cannabis & the British Government
A recent study conducted by the US National Institutes of Health (NIH), found that the endocannabinoid system is involved essentially in every human disease. In fact, the reason that medical cannabis is legal in dozens of US States is a result of this discovery.
The firm GW Pharmaceuticals (GW) – the first British company granted permission to grow and study cannabis as potential medicine within UK borders – was founded in 1998. This was just six years after scientists had announced the discovery of the endocannabinoid system – the largest system in our bodies and one that is in charge of all the rest (including our immune system). Some THREE decades since its discovery, and most people, including many health professionals, remain unaware they even have an endocannabinoid system (ECS), and many medical schools still fail to teach anything about this important system.
Why? Because this discovery undermined everything we had been told about cannabis and, as such, was kept out of the media. The existence of our ECS identified cannabis as medicine and that did not suit the British government, who were hellbent on winning their doomed ‘war on drugs,’ no matter what the cost. And yet, as the British government continued to demonise cannabis as dangerous and addictive, it was simultaneously granting GW with licences that enabled them to grow, research, and develop cannabis medicines through the same pathway as prescription medications. Well, if that’s not hypocritical, then I don’t know what is!
GW has managed to license several cannabis treatments in recent years, and the firm also holds patents for cannabinoids (THC and CBD) and cancer. As with all licenses and patent applications for possible medical products, but especially so with substances that were/are illegal, GW had to provide enough scientific evidence to prove the potential usefulness of cannabis in cancer treatment. GW did so extensively, citing results from the mid-1970s though to the present (the first research reporting cannabis as a potential cancer treatment was published in 1975). Such decisions are of course made by British Home Office under the leadership of Theresa May. Therefore, it can only be determined that the British government is fully aware that cannabinoids are a potential cancer treatment since at least 2011, which is when GW applied for the cannabis/cancer patent, but probably earlier due to the amount of medical studies being published at that time.
Despite this, current government reports on the potential benefits of medical cannabis, claim there is “no or insufficient evidence to support or refute the conclusion that cannabis or cannabinoids are an effective treatment for cancers, including glioma.” Not only does this disagree with the findings of earlier government-commissioned reports, but it also fails to mention the patent awarded to GW Pharmaceuticals and the fact that the company has been funding a clinical trial, which began in 2013 and is still taking place! This trial is investigating brain cancer with cannabinoids (alongside chemotherapy), and as this “study follows several years of pre-clinical research conducted by GW in the field of glioma” (since 2013), the British government cannot be unaware that trials are taking place, and neither can it be ignorant of the significant volume of scientific evidence effectively showing that cannabinoids (especially THC) treat cancer
The most disconcerting aspect of this denial that cannabis has a role in cancer treatment is not only that it is untrue, as shown by the clinical trials that are currently taking place under licensing from the Home Office, but how it highlights the British Government’s continuing duplicity and double-standards. In 2014, which was during Theresa May’s appointment as Home Secretary (2010-2016), it came to light that May and her aides had tampered with the (official) wording in a Whitehall document.
The reason was because she did not agree with its conclusion of there being ‘no link between tough laws and illegal drug use.’ Nick Clegg, who reported May’s misconduct, said the original draft had been subject to “endless wrangle between Lib Dem ministers and Theresa May about the fullness of what would be published.” Clegg’s report also said that May stated that “there would be no change whatsoever [in drug law] as long as she led the Home Office.” The question was, why?
'Cannabis has proven to be one of the safest drugs available, less harmful than alcohol or anything you will find in a pharmacy. This plant has been called a miracle drug by many and is quickly growing in popularity for its medicinal properties. Yet, despite the growing evidence of the incredible advantages and benign nature of cannabis, there are powerful business and political interests that are very intent on keeping this drug illegal.' (Dr Dani Gordon, The CBD Bible, 2020).
The above video (which can be seen outside the UK) revealed the role of Mrs May and other politicians in regard to their investment and profits derived from medical cannabis.. so what happened to free speech?
GW Pharmaceutical’s Cannabis Farm
Political Chess Games
The reasons behind Theresa May’s behaviour did not become apparent until 2018, which is when several children needing medical cannabis for severe forms of epilepsy had their medicine confiscated when trying to enter Britain after obtaining the medicine abroad. By this time, May was serving as Prime Minister, and had chosen Victoria Atkins as her Drugs Minster – something that most believed was due to her sharing the same strong anti-drug views. However, their personal interest in medical cannabis became embarrassingly clear when the media reported that both women were compromised.
Theresa May’s husband, financial investor Phillip May, is a part of the Capital Group company, which owns a 22% stake in GW Pharmaceuticals, and Victoria Atkins husband is Paul Hayward, the managing director of British Sugar, which grows cannabis in the U.K’s largest legal cannabis farm and is a major supplier for GW Pharmaceuticals. How very chummy! So in reality, May and Atkins opposed the legalisation of medical cannabis, not because of policy or a belief that its use was wrong, but because they and their families stand to gain financially by keeping cannabis illegal.
Cannabis is listed in Schedule 1; a four-tiered classification system for dangerous dugs with S1 being reserved for the world’s deadliest substances (e.g. heroin), and characterised as having a high risk of abuse, addictive, and without any medical value whatsoever. Schedule 1 drugs can not be prescribed or used for medicines, and they are also not allowed to be studied as potential medicine. This is why scientists have struggled to research cannabis; except that is for GW Pharmaceuticals.
GW’s Sativex, which is made from a whole plant extract of 1-1 ratio CBD/THC, was approved as medicine not long after Theresa May had been appointed as Home Secretary. According to the Home Office, Sativex, is not cannabis, and so placed in Schedule 2, again under May’s authority, because it made marketing and exporting processes far easier. And that, of course, meant more profits for shareholders.
The notion of Sativex not being cannabis is ridiculous when its made with nothing else whatsoever! Even more ridiculous is the fact that if you are carrying Sativex without a prescription and get caught, then the drug reverts back to being cannabis, and therefore illegal. So you could be arrested! Totally bonkers!
Theresa May, who served as the UK’s Home Secretary from 2010-2016, was “in charge” (as she put it), during the period that GW applied and was awarded around 40 licenses/patents to grow cannabis for medical research purposes. These covered a wide number of conditions, including cancer. More important, however, is the fact that it was Theresa May who was Prime Minister during the 2018 cannabis ‘reform.’ The truth of the matter is there was no real reform for the people, it was only the cannabis industry that profited.
GW’s Epidiolex, which is derived from CBD-only plants (licensed in 2016 and marketed abroad) was approved for use in the UK in June 2018 – at exactly the same time as stories about children having their cannabis medicine confiscated at the UK’s borders. The fact that Epidiolex treats exactly the same rare form of childhood epilepsy that the children were treating with medical cannabis obtained from abroad can hardly be a coincidence!
The 2018 changes in cannabis law, which were supposedly going to facilitate patients access to cannabis medicines, were achieved by: (a) gaining public support via an intentional media campaign describing children having their cannabis medicine seized at the British border; and (b) by changing the wording of the laws around cannabis – a long-term habit of Mrs. May. The wording, which resembles something like doublespeak in George Orwell’s 1984, ensures the cannabis industry can peddle their wares freely, while also ensuring that cannabis remains illegal to the British people. As such, GW’s cannabis products are the only cannabis medicines available (in theory) in Britain, while 1.4 million cannabis patients are having to break the law. May’s actions, have been described as devious, unethical, and hypocritical.
According to many critics:
‘The timeline for the cannabis medication’s production and approval raises serious questions about whether the government has been involved in insider dealing, which is illegal in the UK:
2016 – Theresa May wins the general election
May’s husband owns the majority share in the world’s largest producer of cannabis, GW Pharmaceuticals
2017 – Victoria Atkins Becomes Parliamentary Under Secretary – despite almost no government experience
Atkins’ husband owns British Sugar – The company that produces the main ingredient GW uses for its cannabis medication
2018 – Atkins Is Promoted To Home Office Minister
June 2018 – The Home Office seize cannabis medication from a child at the airport, and then return it after the press are alerted to the story
16 June 2018 – The Home Office starts to make exceptions for children who need cannabis oil to treat epilepsy
25 June 2018 – GW Pharmaceuticals announces the FDA has approved cannabis medication it has made, to treat childhood epilepsy
The cannabis medication is now being reviewed by a European body, whilst the government considers making cannabis medication legal in the UK.
Early 2019 – GW Pharmaceuticals finds out if their cannabis medication has been approved by the European Medicines Agency (EMA)
Researching Reform wrote about GW Pharmaceuticals […] when it was revealed that several husbands of senior government officials, including Theresa May and Home Office Minister Victoria Atkins, had substantial interests in GW, whose chairman is a conservative party donor. Disgraced Family Court psychiatrist George Hibbert is also an investor in the pharmaceutical company.’
"Most people in our industry said it was impossible to turn cannabis into a prescription medicine. We had to rewrite the rule book. We have the first approval of a plant extract drug in modern history. It has 420 molecules, whereas every other drug has one."
2020: Billy Caldwell finally receives an NHS prescription for the medicine he needs (so including THC), 2 YEARS after having won his case in the British High Court. He frames it!
Sativex, which is used to treat the symptoms of MS, is cannabis – pure and simple – and whole plant preparations are herbal medicines. The UK Medicines and Healthcare Regulatory Authority (MHRA), does NOT recognise or approve whole plant extracts as medicines, and that posed a problem for anyone wanting to license cannabis products, including GW. This is because pharmaceutical drugs have one molecule, whereas plant-based preparations have many hundreds of molecules. This means they cannot be tested in the same way as prescription drugs. So, just how did Sativex get MHRA approval?
Dr. Geoffrey Guy, GW’s founder and former CEO, has boasted over the way he and his company were able to change the ‘rule book’ (law) to license cannabis medicines. As previously mentioned, Schedule 1 drugs and their derivatives can not be studied or prescribed as medicine. So May got around this by once again fiddling with the wording of law, which included adding ‘some clever tweaks to existing policies,’ and adding the word ‘raw’ in from of the word ‘cannabis.’ Once achieved, GW was able to makes its approval application for Sativex.
Anyone, no matter what their stance on cannabis, can see that the Emperor is wearing no clothes! There is nothing different about the cannabis plants being used to make Sativex than any other cannabis plant of the same strain – including those grown illegally! Nevertheless, it was approved as medicine, placed in Schedule 2, and proving extremely lucrative to its investors.
Many people believe that very sick children were at the heart of the 2018 changes in cannabis law, so when the families of the children won their case in the High Court, the British public naturally believed that the children had received their cannabis medicine via the NHS. Unfortunately, this was not what happened. Instead, the children were denied access to the medicine they were legally entitled to and prescribed GW’s Epidiolex, a CBD-only product and therefore devoid of the THC that was in the medicine they had obtained overseas.
The British public also believed Theresa May’s promise to legalise medical cannabis; so much so that doctors were inundated with patients asking for access to the medicine in the months that followed the changes to cannabis law, but without success. Although apparently aimed at allowing ‘the wider use of cannabis-based products for medicinal use it humans,’ very few people have managed to access medical cannabis via the NHS since the change.
The British public also believed Theresa May’s promise to legalise medical cannabis; so much so that doctors were inundated with patients asking for access to the medicine in the months that followed the changes to cannabis law, but without success. Although apparently aimed at allowing ‘the wider use of cannabis-based products for medicinal use in humans,’ it seems that very few people have managed to access medical cannabis via the NHS. So, the so-called 2018 cannabis ‘reform’ did absolutely nothing for the estimated 1.4 million people (gov. figure) currently using cannabis illegally for medicinal purposes. However, the changes enabled the rescheduling pf Sativex to Schedule 4, thus benefiting GW and its investors, and they also ensured . because the changes enabled the rescheduling of Sativex to Schedule 4 and ensured that pharmaceutical medical cannabis remained distinct in law from everyone else’s cannabis.
When is a Plant not a Plant...?
Pharmaceutical drugs are either derived from man-made (chemical) substances that are created in laboratories, (e.g. Valium), or synthesised (copied) from a specific substance found in nature that has been found to have medical value. Aspirin, for example, is believed to have been derived from Willow tree bark. And it is this reason that our laws demand vigorous clinical trials, along with strict licensing laws that prove the effectiveness and safety of any product intended for medicinal use. After all, chemicals can be, and are, dangerous, and, unfortunately, so are many prescription drugs despite ‘vigorous’ clinical trials.
Cannabis, in contrast, has never been the sole cause of anyone’s death in the entire history of the human race. Unlike many pharmaceuticals drugs, addiction is almost non-existent (if it exists at all), it is impossible to overdose when using cannabis, and even the psychoactive effects related to THC can be eliminated by taking the medicine via suppositories, – something that is rarely mentioned officially. However, the most important advantage cannabis has over pharmaceutical drugs is it’s ability to interact with the system in our bodies that is in charge of our health and overall wellbeing; our endocannabinoid system. So, while not without risk, cannabis is nowhere near as dangerous as most prescription dugs, and its side-effects (often exaggerated by the British authorities), are minimal in comparison to prescription drugs.
As discussed previously, Sativex and Epidiolex have been licensed as if they are pharmaceutical drugs. This is probably because plant-based preparations are not recognised by the U.K. Medicines and Healthcare Regulatory Authority (MHRA) as medicines, and are therefore notoriously difficult to license due to strict and restrictive requirements demanded by law (e.g. the product must have been in medicinal use in the UK for a continuous period of at least 30 years prior to licensing). The U.K’s Human Medicines Regulations (2012) state:
‘… a product is a herbal medicinal product if the active ingredients are herbal substances and/or herbal preparations only.
A herbal substance is a plant, or part of a plant, algae, fungi, or lichen, or an unprocessed exudate of a plant, defined by the plant part used and the botanical name of the plant, either fresh or dried, but otherwise unprocessed.
A herbal preparation is when herbal substances [such as a plant] are put through specific processes, which include: extraction; distillation; expression; fractionation; purification; concentration, and fermentation.
The herbal substance being processed can be: reduced or powered; a tincture; an extract; an essential oil; an expressed juice; or a processed exudate (rich protein oozed out of its source).
Not all herbal products are medicines, some can be classified as food supplements or cosmetics.’
There can be no doubt that British medicine law defines Sativex and Epidiolex as herbal medicines – no matter what the authorities/pharmaceuticals claim – so they should therefore be licensed as such. However, the reality is that it is notoriously difficult (if not impossible), to obtain approval for plant-based medicinal products due to laws that are so strict and prohibitive that they ensure that herbal products never reach the health market. And as the pharmaceuticals played a major role in ensuring that herbal medicine was publicly perceived as ‘unscientific’ and ‘quackery’ because it eliminated any competition, it is highly probable that the British authorities changed our cannabis laws solely for the benefit of the pharmaceutical industry.
Factors Impacting Access to Medical Cannabis in Britain
The promise of medical cannabis reform gave millions of people with a multitude of health conditions, including chronic illnesses, more than a glimmer of hope. And yet, apart from Sativex and Epidiolex, only three people were prescribed medical cannabis via the NHS in the two years that followed, and although medical cannabis is available privately, an uptake of only 2000 people (out of the 1.4 million people estimated to be using medical cannabis illegally), suggests that price is a barrier to most people. However, it is widely believed that the main problems impeding patient access to medical cannabis is caused by issues associated with scientific research, the lack of understanding of medical medical cannabis amongst the professional healthcare community, along with a refusal by the authorities to acknowledge that cannabis is herbal medicine and treat it accordingly.
Although hundreds of scientific randomised trials have taken place, and continue to take place, across the world, these are not recognised by the British authorities because they ‘typically favours research conducted on its own soil.’ In other words, the mountain of research from countries that are light-years ahead of the UK in regard to cannabis medicine, are completely ignored or not taken into account because they are ‘foreign.’ This is a ridiculous situation – especially when we are talking about potential medicines that could help millions of people.
Adding to this problem is that very little has been or is being conducted in Britain, which means that very few cannabis-based preparations have been tested in a clinical setting – and there are no plans to change this situation any time soon. So, despite overwhelming scientific evidence from abroad, the British authorities repeatedly tell the public that there is a lack of scientific evidence, and that medical cannabis is therefore unsafe and potentially dangerous. This view is not shared by governments and health professionals in countries and places where medical cannabis is easily accessible.
Other research that took place was disappointing because of the choices made by the researchers. The results from a large CUPID study, which took place at Plymouth University, was supposedly aimed at examining the effects of THC on patients with MS due to numerous ‘anecdotal reports of benefit.‘ Unfortunately, the researchers chose not to use actual cannabis, which is what the MS patients had reported using, but instead used ‘synthetic THC and consequently the results were disappointing and irrelevant to the claims it sought to test.’ Again, something that had been proved time and time again in research overseas.
The choice to use synthetic THC in the CUPID study was obviously aimed at producing a pharmaceutical medicine, but the results of this study (and many others abroad), simply repeat what the pharmaceuticals have known for decades: that synthesised cannabis is nowhere near as effective, the side effects worse, and they are far more potentially dangerous than natural cannabis. Consider nabilone, the first synthesised THC drug produced by the pharmaceuticals during the late-1970s. Perceived by many as being the ‘great white drug’ that would replace cannabis, and with high expectations of being quickly approved, nabilone was being tested in clinical trials that included cancer patients. According to the experts, ‘they had it on double-tracking with humans and animals [..] until suddenly, dogs on nabilone started having convulsions and dropping dead.‘ Undeterred, the pharmaceuticals created the prescription drug Marinol, which was also made up with 99% of synthesised THC, but its side effects were (are) so severe that patient reports show that most people prefer using natural cannabis.
This failure by researchers to listen to anecdotal reports and patient experience significantly hinders medical cannabis progress and is a waste of resources, but unfortunately it still continues today. Most research that has been and is being conducted in the UK is carried out by GW, and the company is currently conducting randomised clinical trials on the effects of cannabis on brain cancer. Unfortunately, GW seems to have ignored numerous bench studies from abroad (including those the firm used to obtain its cannabis patents/licences), as well as thousands of anecdotal reports from cancer patients that all agree: THC-rich whole plant extracts potentially treat cancer. Despite this, GW is investigating a potential treatment for cancer with one of its own products – Sativex – alongside chemotherapy.
And the authorities in the UK continue to do so, as do many other countries where access to medical cannabis needs to take place.
THC-rich Cannabis Extract
Although GW’s earlier (stage 1) trials did report an increase in survival rates when using Sativex, these results were minimal in comparison to the reports of the effectiveness of THC-rich extracts used in cancer/cannabis studies from abroad. In addition, the same studies from abroad report that THC-rich extracts were able to effectively treat the cancer(s) without the need for other treatments (e.g. chemotherapy), and the same forms of extracts (at different strengths) have been shown to be effective in treating a multitude of different health conditions and symptoms of disease. So why not test THC-rich cannabis extracts?
The failure of recognising scientific work from abroad, along with the failure to adequately research medical cannabis in the UK, also impacts our healthcare professionals because it has resulted in a lack of long-term data that healthcare professionals can study and learn from. Our endocannabinoid system, for example, was discovered almost 30 years ago, and yet around almost ALL medical schools fail to teach anything about the endocannabinoid system, and only half of medical schools include medical cannabis in their curriculum. It is this distinct lack of meaningful training that has resulted in doctors not having the confidence to prescribe medical cannabis.
There are approximately 80,000 doctors listed on the Specialists Register of the General Medical Council as being permitted to legally prescribe medical cannabis, but the reality is that very few are doing so. According to medical cannabis experts, this situation has been associated with two issues: (1) Because NICE provided inadequate guidance; and (2) because doctors are ‘cautioned against prescribing medical cannabis treatments for conditions such as epilepsy, chronic pain and anxiety, despite there being good, international evidence that the drugs can help to alleviate symptoms. They also state (continuously) that doctors should only consider medical cannabis as a last resort – so only after all other treatments (pharmaceutical drugs) have failed to work. Furthermore, the NICE guidelines do not encourage doctors to prescribe, but instead emphasise the ‘dangers’ of cannabis, such as addiction/mental health issues, and they state that ‘when exercising their judgement, professionals and practitioners are expected to take this guideline fully into account.’ Although the NICE recommendations are not mandatory, it is evident from the tone of these guidelines that doctors are expected to adhere to them. Needless to say, these issues will continue impacting patient access to medical cannabis until they are addressed.
