Two cannabis-based medicines have been approved for use by the NHS in England to treat epilepsy and multiple sclerosis.
By Tom Chesley, Staff Writer.
Two cannabis-based medicines have been approved for use by the NHS in England to treat epilepsy and multiple sclerosis.
The Home Secretary announced that products which meet safety and quality standards are to be made legal for patients with an exceptional clinical need. This announcement was the culmination of a review into medicinal cannabis launched by Sajid Javid, following an outcry over two children – Billy Caldwell and Alfie Dingley – being denied access to medicinal cannabis oil. Billy Caldwell and Alfie Dingley suffer from Lennox-Gastaut and Dravet syndromes. As reported by the Guardian, a further 8000 to 9000 people in the UK suffer from these diseases. Cannabis based product Epidyolex has been approved for these two rare types of epilepsy, while the spray Sativex has been recommended for muscle spasms in multiple sclerosis. Guidance issued by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (Nice) recommended the substances after examining cannabis-based products for several different conditions.
Many campaigners welcomed the home secretary’s decision. Simon Wigglesworth, the deputy chief executive at Epilepsy Action, commended the decision to recommend Epidyolex. However, he said there were many thousands of people with other complex and treatment-resistant epilepsies who could potentially benefit from cannabis-based medicines. Speaking to the BBC, former justice minister Sir Mike Penning also questioned the restrictions still imposed on many cannabis-based medicines.
“Any move to restrict medical cannabis in the UK to a very narrow range of derived products, each requiring full pharmaceutical trials, thereby blocking out the many products available overseas, will lead to great disappointment and be a missed opportunity.”
The legalisation of these two cannabis-based medicines can be seen as part of a more liberal attitude towards the drug after a 2018 UN report revealed that the UK was the largest producer of medicinal cannabis in the world.
