It is 5 years since hashish was legalised within the UK for medical use, however new analysis suggests there was a rise within the variety of folks utilizing hashish illegally to attempt to deal with their well being situations.
A YouGov ballot, commissioned by medical hashish clinic Sapphire Medical Clinics, claims 1.8 million folks within the UK use the unlawful hashish market to alleviate signs – up by 29% from 2019.
Chris Cowan is one among them. In his good semi-detached house, he seems to be a world away from the stereotypes related to marijuana.
But for greater than 30 years he took hashish illegally to assist the anxiousness which got here along with his melancholy and PTSD.
“It’s pot luck with the type of cannabis that you get when you’re buying illicit cannabis, you don’t know the quality or the strength of it. There were times when I would take the illicit cannabis and it actually exacerbated symptoms,” he mentioned.
Medical hashish was legalised within the UK in 2018 which has allowed cannabis-based medicinal merchandise to be prescribed by medical doctors on the General Medical Council’s specialist register. It cannot be prescribed by a GP.
Patients should obtain a medical prognosis and present proof that licensed remedies have been tried with out offering ample symptom reduction.
Some 32,000 folks within the UK take medical hashish. Chronic ache and anxiousness are the 2 most typical situations for therapy.
But with £3.57bn being spent every year on shopping for unlawful hashish to self-medicate, Dr Mikael Sodergren, co-founder of Sapphire Medical Clinics, says persons are placing themselves unnecessarily in danger.
“Medical cannabis has to go through a production process like all other medicines and that’s regulated. So there have to be tests done at all stages of the process to make sure we have the chemical compounds we say there are in the medicine.
“That clearly does not exist within the illicit market, there is not any high quality accountability.”
Read more:
Amsterdam to weed out cannabis in red light district
Medical cannabis company Hilltop Leaf secures £2m investment
Largest-ever haul of cannabis seized by police in Spain
Mr Cowan was prescribed hashish flowers for vaping a 12 months in the past and says it has been life-changing.
“The first thing I noticed is it alleviated my symptoms right away,” he mentioned. “It doesn’t get me high, it doesn’t intoxicate me, it does the total opposite.”
While hashish has been proven to be efficient in serving to folks with epilepsy, some medical doctors argue there’s a lack of proof over whether or not it helps different situations.
A authorities spokesperson mentioned: “The most significant barrier to access licensed cannabis-based products funded by the NHS is the lack of evidence on the quality, safety, and clinical and cost-effectiveness. In the absence of this evidence, clinicians will remain reticent to prescribe and decisions cannot be made on NHS funding. That is why the government is focused on generating research.”
Source: information.sky.com”