The United Kingdom is home to the second-largest legal medical cannabis market in Europe, only behind Germany. While that may sound impressive on its face, keep in mind that the United Kingdom’s medical cannabis laws and regulations are very restrictive.
“Very few people in England are likely to get an NHS prescription for medical cannabis.” writes the United Kingdom’s National Health Service (NHS) on its website. According to the NHS, its doctors can only prescribe medical cannabis for the following conditions:
- children and adults with rare, severe forms of epilepsy
- adults with vomiting or nausea caused by chemotherapy
- people with muscle stiffness and spasms caused by multiple sclerosis
A recent poll found that if NHS doctors were allowed to prescribe medical cannabis more widely, a vast majority would choose to do so.
“Out of 500 doctors currently practicing in the NHS, almost half of which were GPs, three quarters said that treatment options for women’s health conditions, such as endometriosis, PMDD and menopause, are too limited.” reported Cannabis Health News in its local coverage. “Meanwhile, over two-thirds (67%) say patients with chronic pain conditions take up the vast majority of their week and feel there are too few options for treating patients with conditions such as fibromyalgia, arthritis and back pain.”
“When asked about the type of alternative treatment they believe should be available, almost nine in 10 (87%) doctors agreed that they’d be open to prescribing medical cannabis to manage chronic pain, and 80% of GPs would prescribe it to manage women’s health conditions, if it were part of the NHS toolkit.”
For the United Kingdom’s emerging legal medical cannabis industry to reach its full potential, NHS doctors need to be able to prescribe medical cannabis for any condition in which they think the suffering patient will benefit from medical cannabis therapies.
Furthermore, the types of products prescribed need to go beyond just pharmaceutical cannabis products. The NHS website currently lists the following medications that NHS doctors can prescribe:
- Epidyolex (for epilepsy patients)
- Nabilone (for chemotherapy patients)
- Sativex (for multiple sclerosis patients)
Suffering patients can gain safe access to medical cannabis products through private channels (non-NHS). The United Kingdom’s emerging medical cannabis market value is projected to reach €300 million in 2025, driven entirely from non-NHS prescriptions.
Per a recent inquiry, it was determined that NHS prescriptions went to “fewer than five patients,” which highlights how limited the United Kingdom’s medical cannabis rules and regulations are right now.