The fourth paper in our Decalogue series is written by Pierre van Weperen, Managing Director of of Grow Group
10 Years On: What we Achieved in Medicinal Cannabis | Abstract
Looking back at ten years of medical cannabis legalisation in the UK, we can see that some important lessons were learned as the industry had to adapt to a very special context for this new frontier in the British healthcare landscape.
Imagine a UK who has fully embraced medical cannabis as a treatment option for patients with chronic pain, pain related to cancer or other diseases and symptom management in parkinson’s, epilepsy, MS and others. Sleeping disorders, PTSD and other mental health issues are regularly being addressed and treated with medical cannabis, a significant percentage of black market users have converted to having medical oversight of their treatment instead of just going to their dealer.
Many patients who were cannabis naive and on high dose painkillers and opioids have managed to reduce those and replace them by medical cannabis, also reducing the number of side effects and deaths related to high dose opioid use significantly. Medical cannabis prescriptions are still private but the NHS has allowed and endorsed these scripts to be written during NHS consultations.
50,000 patients in the UK are now regularly using medical cannabis, public awareness and acceptance also with healthcare professionals has increased and there are now hundreds of prescribers. How do we get here? What changes do we need to make it happen and why?
. Create more research documents, to convene the medical society and try to explain more the physiology of these new molecules and the effects on the body.
The UK cannabis space is becoming an eco chamber of great ideas. We must all band together in order to get a unified message out to the masses.
. Create more research documents, to convene the medical society and try to explain more the physiology of these new molecules and the effects on the body.