Bureaucracy Regarding Medical Cannabis Is Affecting Kids With Epilepsy in Scotland
A Scottish Member of Parliament demands action as it’s revealed that a tiny portion of medical cannabis patients has been able to get their prescription medicine, such as Bedrocan. The MP claims that despite cannabis-based medicines being available in the UK, many families with kids that truly need them and have to pay up to £1300 a month in order to get the treatment due to red tape, which is unacceptable.
A Work In Progress
In an answer to the claim, the UK Health Minister mentioned that even though this type of medication is already available, there’s still research and trials to be done in order to make the right decisions so despite being slow, there’s a lot of planning “behind the curtains” going on at the moment. The Health Minister added that since April 1 the NPR (national Patient Registry) has been collecting data and monitoring patients using licensed and unlicensed cannabis-based medicines which will be used to develop the medical cannabis laws and regulations correctly and will also include private patients once it’s ready. Also adding that they’re focused on ensuring they get the right solutions for those who need it but safety comes first when talking about this type of product, which is relatively new.
In response, the Scottish MP said that it’s comprehensible that developing medicines is complicated, takes time and it’s unthinkable to sacrifice safety just to make cannabis-based medicines available quickly but the Covid vaccine was tested, produced, and provided for free in less than a year so the research and development of medical cannabis should be given the same priority.
The Case Of Murray Gray
This demand comes from the recent case of Murray Gray, a 9-year-old from Scotland who started having Tonic-Clonic seizures when he was two. The seizures became more and more frequent going from a total of 12 seizures in 2017 to having 12 seizures daily in 2018.
Murray was then diagnosed with Myoclonic Atonic epilepsy which is a rare form of epilepsy that affects 2 children out of 100; The doctors tried every possible medication and none were able to help him, escalating to 600 seizures a day. Seeing his grave condition, his mother eventually was able to get him a prescription for a cannabis-based medicine called Epidiolex and Murray has been seizure-free since 2019.
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