• Menu
  • Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Before Header

Michelle's blog

Food allergy and food intolerance, freefrom foods, electrosensitivity, this and that...

  • Home
  • Blog
  • About
  • FreeFrom Food Awards
  • Foods Matter
  • Walks & Gardens
  • Salon Music
  • Home
  • Blog
  • About
  • FreeFrom Food Awards
  • Foods Matter
  • Walks & Gardens
  • Salon Music

Disastrous Brexit fallout for medical cannabis users

06/01/2021 //  by Michelle Berridale Johnson//  Leave a Comment

Thanks to the tireless campaigning of a group of  ‘epilepsy mothers’, lead by Hannah Deacon, the mother of Alfie Dingley, and her consultant, neurologist Professor Mike Barnes, a change in the law in 2018 allowed the prescription of medical cannabis for children with certain rare types of epilepsy, those in chronic pain and for those with MS. But because so few doctors understand anything about medical cannabis, and thanks to the draconian advice from the Royal College of Physicians and NHS England, only three NHS prescriptions have been issued for medical cannabis for epilepsy since 2018.

Private prescriptions are available (check in to the Medical Cannabis Clinicians Society to find out more) and supplies can be obtained from Holland where most of the medical cannabis research has been carried out – albeit at a cost often exceeding £2,000 a month.

However, these supplies are now to be cut off as a result of us leaving Europe.  On the 15th December an email was sent from the Department  of Health to pharmacy suppliers around the country – not to the end users of the compounds, be it noted – to say that, since the UK has left Europe, as from 31st December ‘prescriptions issued in the UK can no longer be lawfully dispensed in an EU member state’. Pharmacies were told to advise on ‘alternative prescriptions which would be clinically appropriate to switch patients on to’.

However, cannabis is an enormously complex plant – there are 147 different cannabinoids in each plant along with a range of terpenes which create many different and very specific medical properties. Often only one combination will work for complex issues, such as the rarer forms of childhood epilepsy such as Alfie’s. So, for example, the specific compound, Bedrocan, that proved successful for Alfie and was developed in the Netherlands, is the only compound which has actually controlled his 300 daily seizures. There is no alternative that works for him.

Not only is this truncation of supplies a disaster for the users of medical cannabis sourced in Holland, but they were given no notice that their access was about to cease. Hannah has already written to Boris Johnson but the fear must be that, with COVID raging through the land, it may be hard to push the fate of the small group of epileptic children who, Professor Barnes warns, could die if they cannot access their medication, to the top of the government’s agenda. Although, the press are doing their best to raise the issue – a lengthy slot on the Today programme this morning and coverage in all the broadsheets.

How many other unanticipated consequences of Brexit will emerge over the next few months?

(For a number of previous posts on the use of medical cannabis, ‘search’ for cannabis in this blog.)

close

Check your inbox or spam folder to confirm your subscription.

Category: Food/Health Policy, Medical CannabisTag: Alfie Dingley epilepsy, Brexit cuts off cannabis supplies from Holland, Hannah Deacon, Medical Cannabis Clinicians Society, Neurologist Mike Barnes, Professor Mike Barnes

Previous Post: « The trouble about gluten-free oats
Next Post: Are COVID vaccines safe for those with allergies? »

Reader Interactions

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Primary Sidebar

Recent Posts

  • #Speak Up for Allergies
  • Novel food proteins – do they pose a risk to food allergics?
  • The dairy wars
  • In memory of Pat Schooling
  • FSA – on the allergy case

Search this blog

ARCHIVES

Blogroll

  • Allergy Insight
  • Better brains, naturally
  • For Ever FreeFrom
  • Free From (gluten)
  • Freefrom Food Awards
  • Gluten-free Mrs D
  • Natural Health Worldwide
  • Pure Health Clinic
  • Skins Matter
  • The Helminthic Therapy Wiki
  • Truly Gluten Free
  • What Allergy?

TOPICS

FSA – on the allergy case

You might well have thought that COVID concerns had taken over all branches of government activity – but not so. The Foods Standards Agency, while noting the issues, has refused to be distracted from its Food Hypersensitivity work. What is also good to realise – although I suspect that few do – is that all …

Homeopathy – a second string to our vaccination bow?

Cuba has always had a very individualistic– and on the whole very successful – approach to public and population health. The hard line socialist nature of their politics, especially in early days after the revolution, resulted in very high levels of education and medical care – but also in isolation from much of the developed …

Sad, sad news

Yesterday evening, Lisa Acton – co founder, with her husband John Burke, of the Irish FreeFrom Food Awards – finally lost a long and heroic battle with cancer. To my regret I had only met her a few times. A couple of years ago when John brought the whole family to a FreeFrom Food Awards …

Are COVID vaccines safe for those with allergies?

Allergy reactors are, understandably, worried as to whether they should accept a vaccination if and when it is offered. After consultation with the BSACI (British Society for Allergy and Clinical Immunology) the MHRA (Medicines  and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency) have updated their original warning that those with allergies to vaccines, drugs and food should not …

Disastrous Brexit fallout for medical cannabis users

Thanks to the tireless campaigning of a group of  ‘epilepsy mothers’, lead by Hannah Deacon, the mother of Alfie Dingley, and her consultant, neurologist Professor Mike Barnes, a change in the law in 2018 allowed the prescription of medical cannabis for children with certain rare types of epilepsy, those in chronic pain and for those …

The trouble about gluten-free oats

Oats are delicious – oats are nutritious – they contain high levels of vitamins, minerals and antioxidants and are an excellent source of fibre – they do not contain the protein gliadin, the gluten fraction that coeliacs need to avoid – they add texture to gluten free baking and are easy to cook with. Few …

Copyright © 2021 · Michelle's Blog · Michelle Berridale Johnson · Site design by DigitalJen·