Medical Cannabis – The Paradox

Prescription cannabis medicines go through complicated legal structures to be delivered to a patient via specialist clinics. While legal, many patients have had little choice, often thwarted by cost, availability, and long waiting lists for consultation. The decriminalisation proposal to protect from the legal consequences that come with cannabis possession while being symptomatic in London, will have interesting implications for medical patients accessing their medication. The pharmacological paradox will unearth a better relationship with medicine.

Economic and Social Good

As well as decriminalisation being good medical practice for people with co-morbidities experiencing chronic pain or intractable seizures, who else benefits? Decriminalisation allows police to no longer pursue possession of cannabis over more serious crimes, thereby diverting valuable police resources from other areas.

Cannabis medication businesses in grey areas of regulations will hopefully have reduced regulatory barriers, which could mean that patients may see improvements in the quality of products and safer products from these sources going forward.

Political Will

Medical cannabis patients and Sadiq Khan’s cannabis decriminalisation proposal are on the back of a formal evidence-based approach from the London Drugs Commission. Sadly, highlighting the political will, it has faced a lack of encouragement from ministers. On behalf of the government, Housing Minister Matthew Pennycook states the government has “no intention” to reclassify cannabis, so it looks like the government wants you to furnish a powerful resource before they will even look at the efficacy of your proposal.

The Proposal’s Political Tensions

The proposal featured political tensions between the evidence provided by the London Drugs Commission’s submission and the expectations of the ministers and politicians. For some medical cannabis patients or advocates, this now is left to be seen, and whether they continue to deal with petty risk sleight of hand crimes in obtaining their medicine or improving the chances to get their cannabis treatment as unlikely as that just was asked.

The proposal had a certain level of latitude with a preference for ‘natural cannabis,’ as all cannabis types require delivery devices to be effective. In some respects, Khan may better represent the therapeutic value of whole-plant-based medicine, perhaps more than some of the pharmacological products derived from synthetic cannabis, introduced under the auspices of cannabis but not the whole plant. This offers non-pharmaceutical cannabis patients some fulfillment of their presumably discretionary intentions.