Medical Cannabis: Alleviation of Health Conditions

Debate between Ronnie Cowan and Margaret Greenwood

Thursday 4th November 2021 Commons Chamber

[Ronnie Cowan]

It is great to see that research has now been undertaken, and I have a list of five or six projects looking at medical cannabis across a range of different medical conditions, but there is still the issue that many academic organisations cannot get access to the cannabis or hemp plants they require because they are graded as category 2, which keeps the plants out of their hands. The paperwork and processes they have to go through to access the raw product are prohibitive, and recategorisation from category 2 to category 4 would aid the research of a host of academic establishments.

Why are we not making it easier for people to access medical cannabis? Why are people who would benefit from medicine derived from the hemp plant being denied that opportunity? Why can some medicines be purchased on private prescription only? Why are we not making medicines that are widely available in other countries available in the United Kingdom?

[Margaret Greenwood (Wirral West) (Lab)]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing this debate. He is making some important points. One of my constituents lives with progressive myelopathy of uncertain cause that affects his mobility and causes him to suffer brain fog, exhaustion and almost constant pain, which he has described as feeling like “hot wires” being pulled through muscles and skin. Does the hon. Gentleman agree there is real urgency to this issue because of people like my constituent who are suffering on a daily basis?

[Ronnie Cowan]

Of course I agree, and I understand the difficulty in which the Government find themselves, particularly the Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, the hon. Member for Lewes (Maria Caulfield), who is new in post. We need solid research that proves the efficacy of medicines, but behind that we have people who are living with these extreme conditions, day in, day out, for an awfully long time. We have been slow to get to this stage, so there is every reason why the Government should accelerate the research in such cases.

Over the last week or so I have met representatives from the Multiple Sclerosis Society and End Our Pain, and over the years I have heard representations from a much wider range of organisations and individuals that see medical cannabis as at least part of the solution to their or other people’s health issues. There are two licensed cannabis medicines, Epidiolex and Sativex, which are both made by GW Pharmaceuticals. There is nothing wrong with these medicines, but they are isolates, or very nearly, and isolates simply do not work as well as full spectrum products, and they have more side effects.

A full spectrum cannabis product contains all the different cannabinoids and terpenes found in that strain, whereas an isolate product contains only one chemical, such as cannabidiol in Epidiolex. There is published evidence that the full spectrum products are twice as good as the licensed Epidiolex in the treatment of seizures.

Then there are the unlicensed cannabis products that account for virtually all privately prescribed products. Unlicensed products are not routinely prescribed by NHS clinicians, but they can be prescribed by a specialist doctor on the General Medical Council’s specialist register. There are now about 10,000 private prescriptions, 60% for pain, 30% for anxiety and similar conditions such as post-traumatic stress disorder, and 10% for other conditions including neurological conditions, such as epilepsy and MS, and some cancer and gastrointestinal disorders such as Crohn’s. It is clear that medical cannabis can aid a wide range of conditions.

All imported products are imported because the Home Office has been slow in granting cultivation licences for high-THC plants in the United Kingdom, and matters are made worse by the cumbersome import process. Three years and three months after the current Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, while he was Home Secretary, changed the law to allow prescriptions for medical cannabis, we still have only three NHS prescriptions.

As I mentioned in yesterday’s Westminster Hall debate, and it is worth repeating, Hannah Deacon, whose son Alfie is in receipt of one of those NHS prescriptions, has written to the Health Secretary three times to ask him to help, as he promised her he would in writing when he was Home Secretary, but all three letters have been ignored. Why, three years and three months later, are there so few NHS prescriptions?

Basically, doctors are not trained in cannabis medicine, although several teaching programmes are now available. However, the main barrier is the rather unhelpful guidance produced by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence, which has looked at cannabis as if it were a pharmaceutical product, but it is not. We need better guidance written by people who understand the plant, not by those who understand only pharmaceutical medicine.

We also need acceptance of the validity of real-world evidence. The British Paediatric Neurology Association recently reviewed its guidance on prescribing medical cannabis in cases of intractable epilepsy, about which I have a number of serious concerns. If a family go ahead with a private prescription for medical cannabis, the guidance appears to say that the NHS paediatric consultant should insist that the private paediatric consultant takes on 24/7 care.

I am extremely concerned that this is a further attempt to make private prescribing so burdensome as to deter private prescribers. No private prescriber will have the infrastructure to provide this level of wraparound care. My concerns are further increased as this appears to have happened to one family already, and I have a letter supporting my concerns. I am pretty sure that washing their hands of patients in this way is not legal. Will the Minister immediately examine this issue and seek clarification from the BPNA that this is not the interpretation, and will she insist that the guidance is removed or changed?

Many barriers would be broken if general practitioners were allowed to prescribe, and a recent survey shows that a quarter of GPs would be happy to do so. That would require a simple change of the necessary statutory instrument under the Misuse of Drugs Regulations 2001 and would not require parliamentary time. I notice that, as of today, a leading UK insurer is now offering insurance cover at rates not dissimilar to normal cover for doctors prescribing medical cannabis.

To make this easier, there should be a focus on where the evidence lies for prescribing indication-specific, medicalised, pharmaceutical-grade cannabis. We must build on the legitimacy and efficacy of these medicines through the implementation of structured approaches to prescribing, which would help the UK healthcare system to be more inclined to prescribe cannabis sensibly.

In our debates in this place on refusing access to immigrants, health and safety in the workplace, poverty and welfare, I have heard the question many times: “Does somebody have to die before we take action?” Well, people are dying and people are living in unnecessary pain and discomfort.

I have four questions for the Minister. Will the Government recognise the value of real-world evidence, such as the research of Drug Science—including Project Twenty21—as proof of the efficacy of medical cannabis and stop insisting on randomised controlled trials, which are particularly unsuitable for rare forms of epilepsy in children? Do the Government have any plans to conduct a health economics analysis to investigate the cost-effectiveness of medical cannabis? Will the Government meet the costs of prescriptions for children requiring Bedrocan’s Bedrolite or similar products? And if a child was suffering from an epileptic seizure and the Minister had the medicine in her hands, would she administer it? I am sure the answer to the last question is yes, so will she please help to put that medicine into the hands of those who care for these children?

Finally, access to medical cannabis will someday be the norm. We need to confront the obstacles that exist today and clear the path for better access tomorrow.