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Hundreds of patients turn to private cannabis clinics in UK

pharmafile | August 16, 2019 | News story | Medical Communications Marijuana, NHS, UK, cannabis, medicinal cannabis, pharma 

Hundreds of people have turned to private clinics, in an effort to gain access to medicinal cannabis in the UK, according to the BBC.

While medicinal cannabis was made legal in Britain in November 2018, few patients have been able to access the drug on the NHS.

Patients are thus turning to private clinics, and paying as much as £800 a month, to get legal medicinal cannabis.

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Grow Biotech, a company which handles around three-quarters of all medicinal cannabis imported into the UK, said to the BBC that it has received more than 100 requests, around 60 of which had been fulfilled.

The London branch of the Medicinal Cannabis Clinics said it had 162 patients on its waiting list.

The revelation comes after an NHS review found a lack of evidence from clinical trials was preventing clinicians from prescribing the drug.  

The Department of Health commented in a statement: “To support doctors prescribing these products, we have asked the National Institute of Health and Care Excellence (NICE) to develop additional clinical guidelines and are working with Health Education England to provide additional training.

“The decision to prescribe unlicensed cannabis-based products for medicinal use is a clinical decision for specialist hospital doctors, made with patients and their families, taking into account clinical guidance.”

Louis Goss

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