{"id":16691,"date":"2023-10-03T18:57:45","date_gmt":"2023-10-03T18:57:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/?p=16691"},"modified":"2024-01-16T20:04:12","modified_gmt":"2024-01-16T20:04:12","slug":"the-home-secretary-has-acted-prematurely-and-dangerously-on-medical-cannabis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/2023\/10\/the-home-secretary-has-acted-prematurely-and-dangerously-on-medical-cannabis\/","title":{"rendered":"The Home Secretary Has Acted Prematurely And Dangerously On Medical Cannabis"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last June, under\u00a0huge<\/a>\u00a0and hysterical media pressure, Home Secretary Sajid Javid\u00a0opened the lid<\/a>\u00a0on the Pandora\u2019s box of \u2018medicinal\u2019 cannabis. He issued emergency licences to allow access for two young boys with severe forms of epilepsy and at the same time ordered a review into evidence of its therapeutic efficacy, falling for what\u00a0soon transpired to be a well-orchestrated campaign<\/a>. Coordinated by Volteface, the openly pro-legalising recreational cannabis think tank funded by Paul Birch, a multi-millionaire British tech tycoon, it was aided\u00a0by the journalist and campaigner Ian Birrell<\/a>, who has\u00a0disclosed his membership of its advisory panel.<\/a>\u00a0Mrs Caldwell and her sick child had, the Daily Mail argued, been hijacked by a pro-cannabis lobby\u00a0that stands to make billions<\/a>. She herself has a vested interest as the director of a company marketing cannabis oil<\/a>\u00a0which\u00a0she sells online<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

With useful idiots like Lord Hague ready to\u00a0make two and two add up to five<\/a>\u00a0by arguing that the current law is indefensible and therefore we must legalise cannabis altogether, the campaign had got off to a flying start.<\/span><\/p>\n

Since then the media onslaught of the metro-elite\u2019s demands for legal access to this drug has not stopped<\/a>. Fuelled by Canada\u2019s\u00a0ill-considered decision<\/a>\u00a0to legalise recreational use, it reached peak volume last week. Kate Andrews of the Institute of Economic Affairs made her case for it based on a startlingly under-informed account of post-legal pot Colorado (she cannot have read the latest impact update<\/a>) and arrest stats from the\u00a0American Civil Liberties Union<\/a>. Whatever their reliability, she should know that here you are unlikely to receive a custodial sentences before at least seven previous convictions or cautions, and that\u00a050 per cent sent to prison for the first time have at least 15 \u2018previous\u2019<\/a>. As to cannabis possession, it is a myth that is anything\u00a0other than decriminalised already<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

Then we had former Met Chief Lord Hogan-Howe adding his pennyworth. He has no reason not to know the\u00a0devasting evidence<\/a>\u00a0from\u00a0Colorado and Washington State<\/a>, yet he thinks we\u00a0need a two-year review of legalisation<\/a>. Philip Collins of the Times seems equally gung-ho about Colorado\u2019s descent into a\u00a0dangerous drugs products free-for-all.<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

In the most sickeningly selfish article of all, the gloating Simon Jenkins raised his \u2018glass of cannabis wine<\/a>\u2019 to the drug culture that no legalisation will ever sanitise.<\/span><\/p>\n

Unmentioned was that Canada\u2019s decision was\u00a0based on no evidence at all that<\/a>\u00a0it would either reduce youth use or meaningfully curtail the black market, the stated goals for taking the country down this path<\/span><\/p>\n

Nor was the fact that Canada\u2019s \u2018journey\u2019 had started \u2013 where else? \u2013 with medicinal cannabis, the cannabis lobby\u2019s admitted and cynical strategy to\u00a0buy the drug a good name<\/a>\u00a0and lower the public\u2019s defences.<\/span><\/p>\n

This is the wheeze our Home Secretary has fallen for. He has already\u00a0made good his promise<\/a>\u00a0of June 26 and given the all-clear for clinical specialists routinely to prescribe cannabis oil and similar products for epilepsy and multiple sclerosis.\u00a0Taking effect on November 1,<\/a>\u00a0this decision is based on the hastily prepared recommendation of his Chief Medical Officer, Dame Sally Davies, that vaguely designated \u2018cannabis based medicinal products\u2019\u00a0should be \u2018rescheduled\u2019<\/a>\u00a0(in other words, legalised for \u2018prescription\u2019).<\/span><\/p>\n

This comes before the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD) recommendations have been followed through for a clear definition of\u00a0what a cannabis-derived medicinal product is<\/a>, and \u2018additional frameworks\u2019 and clinical guidance for \u2018checks and balances\u2019 for safe prescribing.<\/span><\/p>\n

Yet these are products neither clinically tested nor of proven efficacy, which doctors will be under great pressure to prescribe and which will leak into the illegal market.<\/span><\/p>\n

In this one misguided action, oblivious to those interests ruthlessly exploiting the medicinal cannabis pipe dream<\/a>, the Home Secretary has casually trashed the UK\u2019s world class and purposefully onerous pharmaceutical approval system.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Home Secretary\u00a0cannot have read the small print<\/a>\u00a0of Dame Sally\u2019s review, or he chose not to, in his rush to get the Billy Caldwell story off the front pages. It has the hallmarks of a dodgy dossier. For the American evidence on which it relies states that there is \u2018no or insufficient evidence to support or refute the conclusion that cannabis or cannabinoids are an effective treatment for epilepsy\u2019.* Likewise\u00a0the meta-analysis<\/a>\u00a0Dame Sally leant on provided her with no evidence for epilepsy.<\/span><\/p>\n

The only \u2018conclusive or substantial\u2019 the American evidence finds is for the treatment of chronic pain in adults, chemotherapy-induced nausea and vomiting and for improving patient-reported multiple sclerosis spasticity symptoms. For these conditions the licensed cannabis-based drugs Sativex, Marinol and Nabilone exist.<\/span><\/p>\n

Elsewhere the serious problems associated with the medicalisation of cannabis\u00a0have been set out.<\/a>\u00a0The testimonial evidence it largely relies on falls short of the standards required for the approval of other drugs \u2013 which are \u2018adequately powered, double blind, placebo controlled randomised clinical trials\u2019.<\/span><\/p>\n

Against this absence of evidence is the very real evidence of the drug\u2019s harm which has presented itself again in rising hospital cannabis admissions. These include alarmingly high numbers of teens\u00a0urgently admitted with psychosis<\/a>. Had Dame Sally had taken more time, extended her search and listened to recent warnings, she would have found that this is far from the only public health risk associated with cannabis.<\/span><\/p>\n

A long, well-written and referenced article in the BMJ by an Australian academic, Professor Albert Reece, entitled\u00a0Known Cannabis Teratogenicity Needs to be Carefully Considered<\/a>, published shortly after the Davies review, raises the alarming question of whether exposure to cannabis has significance for rising birth defects; and whether full-spectrum cannabis (unlike the FDA-approved drug Epidiolex) could have some of the problems of thalidomide.<\/span><\/p>\n

Reece\u2019s concern is that even were the clinical efficacy of cannabinoids to be demonstrated, \u2018their teratogenic potential, from both mother and father\u2019 would need to be carefully balanced with their clinical utility. A teratogen, for the uninitiated, is an agent that can disrupt the development of the embryo or foetus and halt the pregnancy or produce a congenital malformation (a birth defect).<\/span><\/p>\n

Professor Reece reports that \u2018gestational cannabis has been linked with a clear continuum of birth defects\u2019 in a range of longitudinal studies, and increased foetal death, and reflects a worldwide increase in high cannabis-using areas.<\/span><\/p>\n

He is not alone to be concerned. The website of NHS Wales\u00a0carries a warning<\/a>\u00a0about cannabis which indicates that it is taking its gastroschisis (a condition in which the bowel herniates out of the abdomen during foetal development)\u00a0outbreak seriously<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

The question of whether\u00a0cannabis is to blame<\/a>\u00a0for\u00a0rising rates of gastroschisis<\/a>\u00a0has been raised elsewhere and those puzzled by it cite drug use as a risk factor,\u00a0as does the NHS.\u00a0<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Professor Reece\u2019s warning needs heeding. Only once before has a known teratogen been marketed globally: thalidomide. What the Home Secretary and his Chief Medical Officer need reminding of, as Reece makes clear, is that the thalidomide disaster is \u2018the proximate reason for modern pharmaceutical laws\u2019. These are laws that Sajid Javid, Dame Sally Davies and the AMCD are prematurely prepared to overturn.<\/span><\/p>\n

Previously supportive commentators have begun to express their reservations about the implications of \u2018medicinal\u2019 cannabis. It can\u2019t be allowed to become a free-for-all,\u00a0writes Alice Thomson<\/a>\u00a0in the Times.<\/span><\/p>\n

She is right to worry, and the dangers could be worse than anything she has imagined.<\/span><\/p>\n

This is why the Home Secretary needs to stop and take stock. He still has time to review and revoke his ill-advised and media-pressured decision. As for the vested interests behind legalising cannabis, he should know that as far as medicinal cannabis is concerned more will never be enough.<\/span><\/p>\n

*Epidiolex, the\u00a0GW Pharmaceuticals<\/a>\u00a0CBD-based<\/a>\u00a0epilepsy drug which has\u00a0recently been approved for Dravet Syndrome<\/a>\u00a0in the US and which we can expect to be approved in Europe, does not fall into this category. One must presume that GW Pharma with twenty years of research would have included the psychoactive ingredient that Mrs Caldwell and her campaign claim is necessary, had they been able to justify it clinically.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Source: The Home Secretary has acted prematurely and dangerously on medical cannabis – The Conservative Woman<\/a> October 2018<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last June, under\u00a0huge\u00a0and hysterical media pressure, Home Secretary Sajid Javid\u00a0opened the lid\u00a0on the Pandora\u2019s box of \u2018medicinal\u2019 cannabis. He issued emergency licences to allow access for two young boys with severe forms of epilepsy and at the same time ordered a review into evidence of its therapeutic efficacy, falling for what\u00a0soon transpired to be a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30,32,68,60,104],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16691","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cannabis-marijuana","category-crime-violence-prison","category-drug-use-various-effects","category-marijuana-and-medicine","category-political-sector"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16691","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16691"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16691\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16691"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16691"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16691"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}