Britain’s stringent rules on medical cannabis harm patients
But the country is still a big (legal) producer of the green stuff
SATIVEX comes in a small brown glass vial. Each spray, delivered under the tongue or to the cheek, emits 100 microlitres of a solution including alcohol, peppermint oil and a mixture of THC and CBD, the active ingredients in cannabis. GW Pharmaceuticals, its manufacturer, insists it is a “cannabis-based medicine”, not “medical marijuana”, since it is made to exacting pharmaceutical standards. It nevertheless contains extracts from Cannabis sativa, the cannabis flower and plant, and some users report a mild high. It can be prescribed by doctors, most often to sufferers from multiple sclerosis (MS).
Partly as a result, fuzzy fronds are flourishing in British greenhouses. In 2016 Britain harvested 95 tonnes of legally grown cannabis, twice as much as a year earlier, and more than any other country. The International Narcotics Control Board, an independent monitor linked to the UN, reckons that Britain is the world’s largest exporter of legal cannabis (in the form of medical products). And GW has another product, for treatment of drug-resistant epilepsy, under consideration by regulators in America and Europe.
This article appeared in the Britain section of the print edition under the headline "Chronic problems"
Britain March 17th 2018
- Britain holds Russia to account over the Skripal affair
- The chancellor boasts of good news, but the Brexit effect is plain to see
- Can’t stand the heat
- How bad could it get?
- Labour’s problem with anti-Semitism
- Britain is slowly acquiring a pro-vax movement
- Britain’s stringent rules on medical cannabis harm patients
- Global Britain or globaloney
More from Britain
Why Britain’s membership of the ECHR has become a political issue
And why leaving would be a mistake
The ECtHR’s Swiss climate ruling: overreach or appropriate?
A ruling on behalf of pensioners does not mean the court has gone rogue
Why are so many bodies in Britain found in a decomposed state?
To understand Britons’ social isolation, consider their corpses