The UK closer than ever to medical cannabis

Following the Billy Caldwell, the British government commissioned a two-part report on the possibility of dispensing medical cannabis in the UK. The first part, written by the government's chief medical advisor, stated the need to authorize doctors to prescribe cannabis to patients who need it. The second part has just been published.

The ACMD Report

L’Advisory Committee on the Misuse of Drugs, Advisory Committee on the Misuse of Drugs, yesterday sent its report in the form of a letter to Sajid Javid, the man in charge of the Home Office, the equivalent of our Ministry of the Interior. In this letter, the ACMD relies on scientific evidence and medical opinion to establish recommendations and draw conclusions regarding the situation of medical cannabis in the kingdom.

In the United Kingdom, as in the United States, substances are classified according to a system of scheduling. Cannabis and its derivatives (with the exception of Sativex) are found in the Schedule 1 Substances, which includes illegal substances with no officially recognized medical value. Doctors are therefore not authorized to prescribe cannabis, even if they feel it could benefit the patient.

The Chief Medical Officer, who wrote the first part of the report, and the ACMD agree that cannabis should be reclassified, to allow access to those who need it. Among its conclusions, the ACMD believes that «medical products derived from cannabis meeting the appropriate standards for medicinal products should not be subject to Schedule 1 restrictions».

The report also stresses the need to quickly and clearly define what a cannabis-derived medicine is, what standards these products must meet, and only once this has been achieved, to reclassify only those products corresponding to the new standards in the Schedule 2, This would enable doctors to prescribe standardized cannabis products like any other medicine. The ACMD points out that «certain products already available abroad could correspond to these standards».

ACMD also recommends that efforts be made on the part of the authorities to ensure that these products remain healthy, and that synthetic cannabis products remain on the market. Schedule 1, This is the only way we can be sure of the quality of our products, because they are dangerous and unpredictable, before drawing two other conclusions:

• clinical trials on the efficacy and safety of medicinal products derived from cannabis are urgently needed
• ACMD believes that cannabis should not be seen in isolation, but as an example of a broader problem of «barriers to science» associated with the classification of other substances as "drugs". Schedule 1

The consequences

Following the release of the CMO report, Sajid Javid said he «thanked the CMO for their advice» and that he was «now awaiting the findings of the independent committee (ACMD) to start the second stage of this process (...) Once I have received this advice, I will decide what steps to take». Yesterday, following the release of the ACMD's advice, he added that he would «make a decision quickly».

This report could rapidly lead to the legalization of medical cannabis in the UK.