Medical cannabis: prescribing and research developments

Last year, the UK Government officially recognised the medicinal value of cannabis and acknowledged that it should be available on prescription (Torjesen, 2018). It announced that medicinal cannabis would be available via prescription from autumn 2018, but it has been more difficult than anticipated for patients to obtain it as a result of various barriers, such as the sparse evidence available regarding its risks and benefits (Robinson, 2019).

There are thousands of children and adults in the UK who are living with conditions that are not treatable by currently licensed drugs and for whom medicinal cannabis may be of benefit (Godlee, 2018). Medicinal cannabis has been found to help chronic pain, spasticity, nausea and vomiting, and epilepsy. There is new evidence of its use in anxiety, sleep disorders, reduced appetite during chemotherapy, fibromyalgia, post-traumatic stress disorder, Parkinson's disease, agitation in dementia, bladder dysfunction, glaucoma, and Tourette's syndrome, according to a prominent British neurologist (Godlee, 2018).