Disinformation from Big Pharma and doctor ignorance is leaving patients vulnerable to the whims of hospital specialists
American cannabis expert Dr Frank D’Ambrosio has warned Sajid Javid that Britain’s medicinal cannabis is already set to fail.
Dr D’Ambrosio has had amazing results with his own patients in California. He spoke at the World Health Organisation where he explained how he stopped prescribing opioids to more than 10000 patients five years ago and began prescribing cannabis.
In an interview with the Metro Dr D’Ambrosio said ‘The UK has fallen short when it comes to cannabis. ‘Disinformation from Big Pharma and doctor ignorance is leaving patients vulnerable to the whims of hospital specialists given the option to only administer medical cannabis to patients as a “measure of last resort”. ‘The UK Government has legalised just a tiny part of the cannabis market and patients across the country will still not be able to benefit from the fantastic benefits of the plant.’
In a letter to Sajid Javid, Dr D’Ambrosio raised the cases of children who have yet to be given the go-ahead to have cannabis medicine on the NHS. He said: ‘I urge you now to adopt an interim licensing regime that lets patients to the same life enhancing drugs that are available in the USA, Holland and 35 other countries.’
The UK changed its law on the 1st November 2018 to allow medical cannabis based treatments for patients with a few certain conditions and prescribed by specialist NHS doctors if all other treatments have failed. However many patients are still struggling to find doctors that are willing to put their cases forward for the prescription.
The new guidance, issued by the Royal College of Physicians (RCP) and The British Paediatric Neurology Association, also specified doctors prescribing any treatment involving medicinal cannabis must be specialists.
Formal guidelines on prescribing medicinal cannabis are expected to be published by the National Institute of Health and Care Excellence (NICE) in October 2019 and the RCP guidance remains under review until then, an RCP spokesman said.
Source – Metro
