United Kingdom: NHS validates Billy Caldwell's access to medical cannabis

It has become the very representation of access to medical cannabis in the UK. Billy Caldwell, now 15, had to wait 2 1/2 years of intense lobbying and pressure before legally receiving his medication to help prevent seizures caused by a rare type of epilepsy.

Charlotte Calwell, his mother, said, «The final battle is over and the war is won. Billy now has the UK's first NHS-funded medicinal cannabis prescription and a whole care package in place.»

«Sunday, November 1 marks second anniversary of the law change, prompted by Billy's near-fatal experience when the British government confiscated his medication at Heathrow Airport in 2018.»

On June 11, 2018, Billy and his mother did indeed return from Canada with privately prescribed medicinal cannabis to treat his 100 daily epileptic seizures, but border officials seized his cannabis oil at Heathrow airport. Without his oil, Billy was struck by numerous life-threatening seizures in a row.

Charlotte explains: «Many times I feared for Billy's life. I sent a message to Nick Hurd, the Home Secretary at the time who had the oil seized, and told him that he had probably signed my son's death warrant. Then, just after midnight on June 16, the government used an exceptional power to rush out the license allowing him to be treated with medical cannabis oil. And that's all we ever wanted. On November 1, 2018, the law was amended to allow medical cannabis prescriptions, but it was written in such a way that doctors were afraid to give them their names.»

It then took two years for a whole support team led by Steve Moore, the director of the Center of Medical Cannabis UK, to find a way of obtaining Billy's prescription and funding from the British health system (NHS).

Charlotte Caldwell is finally relieved «Today Billy is doing very well, growing, maturing, playing and happy and there is no way he could have achieved all these things without this medication.»