At a time when policy to safeguard public health is based on academic and scientific evidence we are pleased to publish Part A of our new report, The UK Review of Medicinal Cannabis: The Needs of a Nation. 

Part A, “The Current Landscape” is a full overview of the routes of access to cannabis used for medical purposes in the UK.  Most of it remains criminal.  Part B, planned for release this summer, will outline the policy options to fix this. 

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“Coronavirus is putting the NHS under considerable strain.  Medical cannabis can radically reduce that pressure if regulations and processes are reformed to enable patients with a wide range of conditions to gain access to it. We welcome this timely and thorough CDPRG report highlighting some of the necessary

changes to achieve the aspirations behind the rescheduling of cannabis in 2018. Inadequate access to medical cannabis is a nationwide public health issue. We hope the Government will respond positively to this important report.” (The All-Party Parliamentary Group for Drug Policy Reform)

Senior researchers Dave King and Amber Moore have put together a full analysis to fully understand the effects of the historic November 2018 movement of cannabis-based products from Schedule 1 to Schedule 2, intended to widen access to appropriate treatments for citizens of the UK. The report provides a stark outline of the current landscape of medicinal cannabis supply and demand in the UK, showing how patient needs are not being met within the current situation. The many barriers to safe, legal access to cannabis-based medicines are presented in full, including the ways that they relate to the 2018 policy changes.

“This report is timely.  Rescheduling cannabis is only the start on a journey about more effective treatment for many.  That is properly unrelated to any discussion about access to cannabis recreationally.  Holding the line on medicinal cannabis for fear of wider recreational use has simply denied useful treatment to many and made no discernible difference in the pros and cons to citizens of prohibited recreational use.  That is a debate which must be judged on its own merits. Confusing the two had just hurt people who are patients rather than consumers. While we do not provide for their medical needs, a significant segment of the population will in turn be compelled to continue supporting criminal activity to manage their conditions.

If we can effect a legal, regulated market for the provision of medical cannabis that enables appropriate patient access we can isolate criminality from treatment under current policy.  Our first go at regulations in 2018 have yet to do this.  We also need to enable the research necessary to offer the widest and best range of medicines that can be safely licensed to address the suffering.  Demand for medicine based on cannabis shows no sign of abating, and we should help patients and doctors to make informed choice of treatment and not rely on an underground supply chain as we still largely do today.  

Crispin Blunt MP (Hon Chair of the CDPRG)

The scope of the research is wide — with the report identifying seven lawful and unlawful routes of access to cannabis based products — and its analysis of each is thorough. Stakeholders consulted in its composition include patients and their families, campaigners, physicians, pharmacists, medical scientists and specialist medical organisations, importers and manufacturers of specials medicines, small- and large-scale cultivation of cannabis, couriers of controlled drugs, pharmaceutical companies with cannabis-based product lines, NHS-England and NHS-Improvement, NICE, licensing authorities and regulators, members of parliament, Government ministers, law-enforcement personnel, lawyers, policy analysts, criminologists and a range of academics from other relevant fields.

Echoing the complexity of the plant itself, the policy topic of “medicinal cannabis” is notoriously daunting. In setting out the various problems encountered by the different groups and organisations consulted, this research demonstrates how the operations, patient needs and perspectives within the landscape interrelate with one another for the first time, with unprecedented clarity. As such, it is intended to be an invaluable tool to anyone wishing to navigate it — for those wishing to understand it as a whole, and equally for those wishing to develop up-to-the-minute knowledge on particular angles, such as the teaching of cannabis-related topics in medical schools, licensing laws and attitudes within policing. (The report will be responsively updated to reflect developments within the landscape, with updates supplied to our Policy Council and those who collaborate with the CDPRG.) 

The experiences of the people that populate each section of this report underscore the urgency of the need to review current policies. This includes those waiting 4-14 weeks for imported products to arrive, parents with no choice but to smuggle the medicines that have been prescribed for their children abroad across the UK's border and otherwise law-abiding citizens who grow their own cannabis "living in fear of the knock at the door," as well as police who are "very reluctant to interfere" with cannabis social clubs (CSCs) and the doctors who feel unconfident prescribing cannabis-based products (readily contextualised by our finding that 44% of medical schools in the UK provide zero preclinical training on cannabis).

To speak to authors Amber Moore and Dave King about the report’s findings, and/or to discuss them with CDPRG Chairman Crispin Blunt, contact us at press@cdprg.co.uk.