Re: Cannabis, cannabis everywhere: UK to review medical cannabis policy as Canada plans imminent legalisation for all uses
In this case a child could have come to serious harm due to misguided and outdated laws. In my own experience on placement I have been with parents who used CBD oil to control their terminally ill child’s pain and seizures with great success. This is where my interest and the awareness of the hypocrisy in drug regulation arose.
According to government statistics 24 people died directly from cannabis use in the UK in 2016, less than 1% of the 2593 UK deaths due to drug misuse.(1,2) 54% of those deaths were due to opiates.(2) Worldwide prescription opiate is spiralling out of control, especially in the US where 78 people a day are dying from opiate overdose either from their prescriptions or heroin addiction which stemmed from their opiate prescription.(3) Thankfully this trend isn’t evident yet in the UK but reported opiate addiction and deaths are on the rise.(4) However, if a patient comes into hospital with a traumatic fracture in severe pain would you give a second thought to giving them effective pain relief like morphine?
Benzodiazepines, amphetamines and neuropathic pain killers are all commonly used as drugs of abuse yet still prescribed so why are these therapies not grouped with other drugs of abuse and banned? They are obviously kept for their therapeutic value despite their other negative outcomes but then I see no difference between them and cannabis.
This is where the law has become archaic and oxymoronic as derivatives of cannabis have been shown to beneficial in not only epilepsy but multiple sclerosis, chronic pain and a range of mental health problems.(5-7) These have been shown in larger studies across Europe and North America where laws have been changed due in appreciation of the growing evidence base. This argument can then be extended to psychoactive substances such as MDMA, LSD and psilocybin where there use in anxiety, depression and PTSD has shown to be beneficial in patients where conventional therapies have failed them.(8,9) This is being explored more by Prof. Nutt and his team in Imperial College but only on very small scales due to government restrictions but worldwide there has been positive results in such studies.(10)
What I am not calling for is a complete disregard for the danger and abuse of these drugs; how to deal with illicit drug usage effectively is a completely different discussion which also needs to be had. I am calling to breakdown these outdated barriers which will allow pharmaceutical freedom to explore the functioning and ability of these drugs with evidence bases to discover and approve new therapies which have the potential to help hundreds of thousands of people. Hopefully these situations worldwide will spark a reform of this nature and not leave the UK behind in discovering the huge potential in such therapies.
References
1. Statista. Number of drug-related deaths due to cannabis use in England and Wales from 1993 to 2016. Statista [Internet] 2017 [Cited 15/09/2018];. Available from: https://www.statista.com/statistics/470833/drug-poisoning-deaths-cannabi...
2. Office for National Statistics. Deaths related to drug poisoning in England and Wales: 2016 registrations. Office for National Statistics [Internet]. 2017 [Cited 15/09/2018] Available from https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarri...
3. Mancini GJ. Challenges and opportunities to change the course of the opioid epidemic: a surgeon’s perspective. Postgrad Med. 2017. 129:1–4.
4. Greener M. Will the UK face an opioid abuse epidemic? Prescriber [Internet]. 2017 [Cited 15/09/2018];. Available from: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1002/psb.1604
5. Koppel BS et al. Systematic review: Efficacy and safety of medical marijuana in selected neurologic disorders Report of the Guideline Development Subcommittee of the American Academy of Neurology. Neurology. 2014. 82(17):1556-1563
6. Devinsky O et al. Cannabidiol: Pharmacology and potential therapeutic role in epilepsy and other neuropsychiatric disorders. Epilepsia. 2014. 55(6): 791-802
7. Grotenhermen F & Muller-Vahl K. The Therapeutic Potential of Cannabis and Cannabinoids. Deutsches Arzteblatt International. 2012. 109(29-30): 495-U39
8. Passie T et al. LSD-assisted psychotherapy in persons suffering from anxiety associated with advanced-stage life threatening diseases. A phase-II, double-blind, placebo-controlled dose-response pilot study. CNS Neuroscience & Therapeutics. 2008. 14(4): 295-314
9. Mithoefer MC et al. Durability of improvement in post-traumatic stress disorder symptoms and absence of harmful effects or drug dependency after 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine-assisted psychotherapy: a prospective long-term follow-up study. Journal of Psychopharmacology. 2013. 27(1): 28-39
10. Davison N. Scientist David Nutt on the medical benefits of psychedelic drugs. Financial Times [Internet]. 2016 [Cited 15/09/2018];. Available from: https://www.ft.com/content/2c4121de-c5d6-11e5-808f-823cd71622e
Rapid Response:
Re: Cannabis, cannabis everywhere: UK to review medical cannabis policy as Canada plans imminent legalisation for all uses
In this case a child could have come to serious harm due to misguided and outdated laws. In my own experience on placement I have been with parents who used CBD oil to control their terminally ill child’s pain and seizures with great success. This is where my interest and the awareness of the hypocrisy in drug regulation arose.
According to government statistics 24 people died directly from cannabis use in the UK in 2016, less than 1% of the 2593 UK deaths due to drug misuse.(1,2) 54% of those deaths were due to opiates.(2) Worldwide prescription opiate is spiralling out of control, especially in the US where 78 people a day are dying from opiate overdose either from their prescriptions or heroin addiction which stemmed from their opiate prescription.(3) Thankfully this trend isn’t evident yet in the UK but reported opiate addiction and deaths are on the rise.(4) However, if a patient comes into hospital with a traumatic fracture in severe pain would you give a second thought to giving them effective pain relief like morphine?
Benzodiazepines, amphetamines and neuropathic pain killers are all commonly used as drugs of abuse yet still prescribed so why are these therapies not grouped with other drugs of abuse and banned? They are obviously kept for their therapeutic value despite their other negative outcomes but then I see no difference between them and cannabis.
This is where the law has become archaic and oxymoronic as derivatives of cannabis have been shown to beneficial in not only epilepsy but multiple sclerosis, chronic pain and a range of mental health problems.(5-7) These have been shown in larger studies across Europe and North America where laws have been changed due in appreciation of the growing evidence base. This argument can then be extended to psychoactive substances such as MDMA, LSD and psilocybin where there use in anxiety, depression and PTSD has shown to be beneficial in patients where conventional therapies have failed them.(8,9) This is being explored more by Prof. Nutt and his team in Imperial College but only on very small scales due to government restrictions but worldwide there has been positive results in such studies.(10)
What I am not calling for is a complete disregard for the danger and abuse of these drugs; how to deal with illicit drug usage effectively is a completely different discussion which also needs to be had. I am calling to breakdown these outdated barriers which will allow pharmaceutical freedom to explore the functioning and ability of these drugs with evidence bases to discover and approve new therapies which have the potential to help hundreds of thousands of people. Hopefully these situations worldwide will spark a reform of this nature and not leave the UK behind in discovering the huge potential in such therapies.
References
1. Statista. Number of drug-related deaths due to cannabis use in England and Wales from 1993 to 2016. Statista [Internet] 2017 [Cited 15/09/2018];. Available from: https://www.statista.com/statistics/470833/drug-poisoning-deaths-cannabi...
2. Office for National Statistics. Deaths related to drug poisoning in England and Wales: 2016 registrations. Office for National Statistics [Internet]. 2017 [Cited 15/09/2018] Available from https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarri...
3. Mancini GJ. Challenges and opportunities to change the course of the opioid epidemic: a surgeon’s perspective. Postgrad Med. 2017. 129:1–4.
4. Greener M. Will the UK face an opioid abuse epidemic? Prescriber [Internet]. 2017 [Cited 15/09/2018];. Available from: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1002/psb.1604
5. Koppel BS et al. Systematic review: Efficacy and safety of medical marijuana in selected neurologic disorders Report of the Guideline Development Subcommittee of the American Academy of Neurology. Neurology. 2014. 82(17):1556-1563
6. Devinsky O et al. Cannabidiol: Pharmacology and potential therapeutic role in epilepsy and other neuropsychiatric disorders. Epilepsia. 2014. 55(6): 791-802
7. Grotenhermen F & Muller-Vahl K. The Therapeutic Potential of Cannabis and Cannabinoids. Deutsches Arzteblatt International. 2012. 109(29-30): 495-U39
8. Passie T et al. LSD-assisted psychotherapy in persons suffering from anxiety associated with advanced-stage life threatening diseases. A phase-II, double-blind, placebo-controlled dose-response pilot study. CNS Neuroscience & Therapeutics. 2008. 14(4): 295-314
9. Mithoefer MC et al. Durability of improvement in post-traumatic stress disorder symptoms and absence of harmful effects or drug dependency after 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine-assisted psychotherapy: a prospective long-term follow-up study. Journal of Psychopharmacology. 2013. 27(1): 28-39
10. Davison N. Scientist David Nutt on the medical benefits of psychedelic drugs. Financial Times [Internet]. 2016 [Cited 15/09/2018];. Available from: https://www.ft.com/content/2c4121de-c5d6-11e5-808f-823cd71622e
Competing interests: No competing interests