Are they slowly coming to their senses?

Is it possible that the Tory government actually has a heart beating down there somewhere? ( I imagine it’s quite a cold and dusty heart, but nonetheless....)

Government returns sick child’s cannabis oil.

https://news.sky.com/story/severely...bis-treatment-is-in-crisis-situation-11406577

A severely epileptic boy is to be allowed cannabis treatment after the Home Office backed down on banning it.

Charlotte Caldwell attempted to bring in medicinal cannabis oil to the UK for her 12-year-old son Billy but it was confiscated at Heathrow Airport on Monday after a flight from Canada.

He was taken to Chelsea and Westminster Hospital on Friday after the frequency of his seizures increased.

Ms Caldwell said on Saturday that Billy had two seizures overnight but he was now stable and asleep.

She said: "Billy had two more seizures overnight which is putting him further into a crisis situation."

A family spokesman said the Home Office has released the medicinal cannabis oil, which is now on its way to the hospital.

The spokesman said a 20-day supply has been made available and will be kept at Chelsea and Westminster hospital.

Billy will get the medication sometime after 2pm today.

In a statement, Home Secretary Sajid Javid said: "This morning, I've used an exceptional power as home secretary to urgently issue a licence to allow Billy Caldwell to be treated with cannabis oil.

"This is a very complex situation, but our immediate priority is making sure Billy receives the most effective treatment possible in a safe way.

"We have been in close contact with Billy's medical team overnight and my decision is based on the advice of senior clinicians who have made clear this is a medical emergency.

"The policing minister met with the family on Monday and since then has been working to reach an urgent solution."

Ms Caldwell said she was "over the moon" at the release of the medicine but she criticised the "dreadful, horrific, cruel experience" that has deeply affected Billy.

She said: "His little body has been completely broken and his little mind.

"I truly believe that somewhere in the Home Office there's someone with a heart and I truly believe that Billy was pulling on their heart strings."

She vowed to keep up her fight to allow others in the UK to have access to the medication they need.

Ms Caldwell added: "My experience leaves me in no doubt that the Home Office can no longer play a role in the administration of medication for sick children in our country.

"Children are dying in our country and it needs to stop now."

Sinn Féin MP Órfhlaith Begley welcomed confirmation that Billy would now get his treatment.

She said: "Billy should never have been put in that position. The treatment was clearly working for him and he deteriorated badly once it ended, yet it still took intense lobbying to get the Home Office to reverse this cruel decision."

Ms Caldwell praised medical teams at the Chelsea and Westminster Hospital. She said: "The staff here have been amazing. He is getting the best medical care in the world. I cannot thank the staff at the hospital enough."

Billy, who is autistic and has pronounced communication difficulties, suffered back-to-back seizures on Friday after being seizure-free for more than 300 days when he was previously given the cannabis oil, according to his family.

Billy, from County Tyrone in Northern Ireland, was given a prescription for medicinal cannabis oil last year to help treat his epilepsy - the first time the drug had been prescribed by the NHS.

But the boy's doctor was told by Home Office drug enforcement teams to stop prescribing the medication, which Ms Caldwell credits with keeping her son's seizures at bay.

The family had planned to return to Canada if they could not get the medicine in the UK but say Billy is now too ill to travel.

Can you imagine if they said no and the kid had a severe seizure next week and died.. Ha weed would be decriminalised in no time.

It's funny in a sick way that GWPharma grows so much damn dope here and it's all mostly being "sold" outside the UK, probably mostly to prevent other countries from demanding their own right to produce their own medicine, all while it's such a ball ache for the most medically dependant child on cannabis in the UK to get a hold of it.

Prohibition is insanity. It's like trying to stop right wing skinheads by beating the shit out of them or saying if we ban the N word racism will go away.

It’s even more crazy when the uk is the largest exporter of legal medical cannabis in the world.
Pure hypocrisy

This is from the BBC news on this case

The Home Office's initial decision, and then its reversal, prompted calls for drug law reform from MPs on all sides.

Mr Blunt, a Conservative, said the existing law was based on an "outdated" claim that cannabis had no medicinal value.
"We need to get serious now about getting the benefits of these medicines, and move to change the frankly absurd position we are in," he said.
Former Conservative Health Minister Dan Poulter said the current situation was "ridiculous" and he said he would push for an urgent change in the law.
He said: "I genuinely don't understand why we see... medicinal cannabis through the prism of the 1971 Misuse of Drugs legislation, when actually this is a medical issue, it's not a prohibition of drugs issue, and that's what's got to change.

Click to expand...

I thought it was quite apt that the guys name is Mr Blunt...

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/...pain-relief-home-office-moj-nhs-a8464766.html

Prescription to start in August... a valuable step for sick people in uk?

Most definitely - government policy is finally catching up with public opinion.

I don't think it'll be long before both recreational and medical cannabis are freely available.

The f*** thing will be that i bet once legal the government will control it and it'll still be illegal to grow in your home - bet you'll need a license or something...

Prescribed Cannabis oil taken from severely epileptic child... sounds like something a movie villain would do.. no , it’s our government-

https://news.sky.com/story/mum-weep...ghters-epilepsy-is-seized-at-airport-11685889

They’ve done it again....

Mum weeps after medical cannabis for daughter's epilepsy is seized at airport
The family flew to Rotterdam to obtain the medicine prescribed by a paediatric neurologist at the Erasmus Hospital.
Emma Appleby flew back to Britain from the Netherlands on Saturday morning with her partner Lee after buying a supply of medical cannabis oils for nine-year-old Teagan.

But when they landed at Southend Airport in Essex, the three-month supply costing £4,600 was seized.

Teagan, from Aylesham near Dover, has a rare chromosomal disorder called Isodicentric 15 as well as Lennox-Gastaut syndrome, which means she has up to 300 seizures a day.

The family flew to the Netherlands on Thursday, obtained the medicine prescribed by a paediatric neurologist at the Erasmus Hospital in Rotterdam and collected it from a pharmacy.

They paid for the supplies with their own money and some they had obtained through fundraising.

Ms Appleby was comforted at the airport by fellow campaigner Hannah Deacon, who last year became the first to be allowed to bring THC oil through a UK airport legally for her seven-year-old son Alfie Dingley, who has epilepsy.

Last November the law in the UK was changed to make access to medical cannabis legal.

In December, Carly Barton became the first person in the UK thought to have been prescribed cannabis for medicinal use.

But parents have been struggling to secure prescriptions partly due to medics here being reluctant to prescribe medical cannabis.

Guidance by NHS England says it expects that cannabis-based products for medicinal use should "only be prescribed for indications where there is clear published evidence of benefit" and in "patients where there is a clinical need which cannot be met by a licensed medicine and where established treatment options have been exhausted".

Health Secretary Matt Hancock said last month that his "heart goes out" to parents experiencing anguish over difficulties in obtaining medicinal cannabis.

He said he is trying to "unblock" some of the challenges in the system but, ultimately, "these things need to be clinician-led".

Ms Appleby, who has met Mr Hancock, said she had no choice but to seek medical cannabis outside the UK.

She said: "I'm really gutted. They just took everything.

"They knew apparently, they had been notified from social media.

"I hadn't said where we were coming in but obviously everyone knew, all you've got to do is put it on the passport.

"They asked me at border control how long we were away for.

"I thought 'they're asking questions as someone's notified them'.

"Then they asked if I had anything to declare, and there were loads of them waiting so I knew if I said no I was going to get myself in deeper so I just said yes."

She said border staff were told not to destroy the medicine and she hopes to apply for an import licence to get it back.

Tory MP Sir Mike Penning, co-chairman of the All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Medical Cannabis Under Prescription, said: "This is a shattering blow for Emma and Teagan.

"It's a damning indictment of the way this policy has been implemented.

"I will be urging all my parliamentary colleagues to get this medicine returned to Emma soonest and demanding that the Department for Health, the NHS and everyone involved gets together urgently so families don't have to go through the stress and trauma of travelling abroad to get a medicine that is now legal here."

Peter Carroll, director of the campaign group End Our Pain, said: "This is a medicine that's legal in the UK. The law was changed for a reason.

"To put these families who have already got this stress and worry of caring for very sick children through all the trauma - Emma has been passed from pillar to post, she's tried to do the right thing at every stage of this process.

"I call on everybody from Matt Hancock, the leaders of the NHS, the leaders of all the medical professions, I know you must all be caring people but the system that you have put in place is resulting in this kind of trauma for families like Emma's.

"It's totally wrong. It's time now for compassion to dictate what happens next and we'll be unstinting in our fight to get this medicine back for Emma and, just as importantly, to make sure this doesn't happen for any other family."

The Home Office had been approached for an import licence on compassionate grounds to help Teagan ahead of the journey but this had been refused, Mr Carroll said.

Ms Appleby's MP, Conservative Charlie Elphicke, has been pushing the Home Office to grant a licence for cannabis oil treatment for Teagan.

A government spokesman said: "The decision to prescribe 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.

"It is unlawful to import unlicensed cannabis-based products for medicinal use to the UK without the prescription of a specialist doctor and a Home Office importation licence.

"Border Force has a duty to enforce the law and stop the unlawful import of controlled substances into the UK."

mr.brunch said:

Mum weeps after medical cannabis for daughter's epilepsy is seized at airport
The family flew to Rotterdam to obtain the medicine prescribed by a paediatric neurologist at the Erasmus Hospital.
Emma Appleby flew back to Britain from the Netherlands on Saturday morning with her partner Lee after buying a supply of medical cannabis oils for nine-year-old Teagan.

But when they landed at Southend Airport in Essex, the three-month supply costing £4,600 was seized.

Teagan, from Aylesham near Dover, has a rare chromosomal disorder called Isodicentric 15 as well as Lennox-Gastaut syndrome, which means she has up to 300 seizures a day.

The family flew to the Netherlands on Thursday, obtained the medicine prescribed by a paediatric neurologist at the Erasmus Hospital in Rotterdam and collected it from a pharmacy.

They paid for the supplies with their own money and some they had obtained through fundraising.

Ms Appleby was comforted at the airport by fellow campaigner Hannah Deacon, who last year became the first to be allowed to bring THC oil through a UK airport legally for her seven-year-old son Alfie Dingley, who has epilepsy.

Last November the law in the UK was changed to make access to medical cannabis legal.

In December, Carly Barton became the first person in the UK thought to have been prescribed cannabis for medicinal use.

But parents have been struggling to secure prescriptions partly due to medics here being reluctant to prescribe medical cannabis.

Guidance by NHS England says it expects that cannabis-based products for medicinal use should "only be prescribed for indications where there is clear published evidence of benefit" and in "patients where there is a clinical need which cannot be met by a licensed medicine and where established treatment options have been exhausted".

Health Secretary Matt Hancock said last month that his "heart goes out" to parents experiencing anguish over difficulties in obtaining medicinal cannabis.

He said he is trying to "unblock" some of the challenges in the system but, ultimately, "these things need to be clinician-led".

Ms Appleby, who has met Mr Hancock, said she had no choice but to seek medical cannabis outside the UK.

She said: "I'm really gutted. They just took everything.

"They knew apparently, they had been notified from social media.

"I hadn't said where we were coming in but obviously everyone knew, all you've got to do is put it on the passport.

"They asked me at border control how long we were away for.

"I thought 'they're asking questions as someone's notified them'.

"Then they asked if I had anything to declare, and there were loads of them waiting so I knew if I said no I was going to get myself in deeper so I just said yes."

She said border staff were told not to destroy the medicine and she hopes to apply for an import licence to get it back.

Tory MP Sir Mike Penning, co-chairman of the All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Medical Cannabis Under Prescription, said: "This is a shattering blow for Emma and Teagan.

"It's a damning indictment of the way this policy has been implemented.

"I will be urging all my parliamentary colleagues to get this medicine returned to Emma soonest and demanding that the Department for Health, the NHS and everyone involved gets together urgently so families don't have to go through the stress and trauma of travelling abroad to get a medicine that is now legal here."

Peter Carroll, director of the campaign group End Our Pain, said: "This is a medicine that's legal in the UK. The law was changed for a reason.

"To put these families who have already got this stress and worry of caring for very sick children through all the trauma - Emma has been passed from pillar to post, she's tried to do the right thing at every stage of this process.

"I call on everybody from Matt Hancock, the leaders of the NHS, the leaders of all the medical professions, I know you must all be caring people but the system that you have put in place is resulting in this kind of trauma for families like Emma's.

"It's totally wrong. It's time now for compassion to dictate what happens next and we'll be unstinting in our fight to get this medicine back for Emma and, just as importantly, to make sure this doesn't happen for any other family."

The Home Office had been approached for an import licence on compassionate grounds to help Teagan ahead of the journey but this had been refused, Mr Carroll said.

Ms Appleby's MP, Conservative Charlie Elphicke, has been pushing the Home Office to grant a licence for cannabis oil treatment for Teagan.

A government spokesman said: "The decision to prescribe 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.

"It is unlawful to import unlicensed cannabis-based products for medicinal use to the UK without the prescription of a specialist doctor and a Home Office importation licence.

"Border Force has a duty to enforce the law and stop the unlawful import of controlled substances into the UK."

Click to expand...

Its crazy m8 the way this country runs but if your a dirty smackhead you get prescriptions for methadone and other shit always dont figure

It's all about the $$ and always will be, shareholders want their train to keep running

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/apr/12/medical-cannabis-nhs-patients-prescription

I guess they’re still dragging their feet...

I guess they’re still dragging their feet...

Cannabis oil mum: 'I'm forced to live abroad to save my child' https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-glasgow-west-48447082

A mother who took her severely ill child to the Netherlands for cannabis oil treatment says she is now trapped living abroad.
Julie Galloway left Scotland with seven-year-old Alexa, who has epilepsy and a rare neurological condition, almost a year ago to live with relatives in Rotterdam.
She says she is still living out of a suitcase and her savings are almost gone - but she fears that returning home without the medication would put her daughter's life in danger.
Julie, from Cumbernauld in North Lanarkshire, said: "I feel like a refugee forced to live abroad to save my child.
"I have no other option. I miss my family. My mother, who has Alzheimers, and my sister are in Scotland - but my child comes first.
"I want to come home but I am terrified the medication will be confiscated. I am struggling to pay for it and I know this can't go on forever."
A version of cannabis oil has been approved for use in the UK, but doctors have been unwilling to prescribe it for Alexa.
Medicinal cannabis is currently unlicensed so doctors can prescribe it only if a patient has a need that can't be met by licensed medicines.
■ Medicinal cannabis: Why has it taken so long to get to patients?
■ Why are so many countries now saying cannabis is OK?
Julie, 49, told the BBC Scotland news website that she decided to travel to the Netherlands last July to seek the treatment after watching her daughter deteriorate for six months.
She explained: "Alexa was diagnosed with epilepsy at the age of five. She also suffers from a rare neurological condition called Rett Syndrome.
"She was having seizures at home but then ended up in hospital."
What are the rules in the UK?
The prescribing of cannabis-derived medicines has been allowed in Scotland, England and Wales since 1 November 2018.
However, medicinal cannabis is currently unlicensed - so it can only be prescribed if a patient has a need that cannot be met by licensed medicines.
It cannot be prescribed by GPs. This has to be done by a specialist consultant, for example in neurology or paediatrics.
One of the arguments against the use of the medication is that there have not been satisfactory drug trials to prove its safety and effectiveness.
As a result, it is rarely prescribed.
■ What are the rules about cannabis oil in the UK?
Julie said that Alexa deteriorated "very quickly" on medication which was causing serious side-effects.
"I witnessed her lose basic skills - such as standing and drinking from a cup as well as walking - within weeks of being in hospital," she said.
"I knew the medication wasn't working but doctors kept her on it anyway despite her still having daily seizures."
Alexa was frequently taking rescue medication which was designed for occasional use. This suppressed her breathing and caused respiratory distress.
She suffered suffered more than 850 grand mal seizures last year and spent seven months in hospital.
Julie did some research and heard that cannabis oil was being used by other children with epilepsy and Rett Syndrome.
'Showing interest in the world again'
However, she was unable to find a British doctor who could prescribe medical cannabis oil, so Julie and Alexa left for the Netherlands, where they are staying with family.
Alexa was taken to hospital after suffering a cluster of seizures. A doctor stopped her medication last November and prescribed cannabis oil.
According to Julie, within a week Alexa "started to show interest in the world again".
Now, living out of a suitcase in Rotterdam, Julie is trying to fundraise to afford the cannabis medication.
And she is calling for the NHS in Scotland to give cannabis prescriptions to children who need them.
She said: "Before, Alexa was having seizures of 20 minutes, where she needed oxygen and turned blue, needed hospitalised, and I thought she might die.
"Now they last about 20 seconds. They have dropped in frequency by about 60-70%.
"I feel like I can almost breathe again."
She added: "She has been on it for few months now and is slowly healing. She can drink from a cup again, and can stand and take a few steps.
"Cannabis is not a miracle cure, but it is certainly giving my child and me a better quality of life.
"We have some kind of normality when before we were walking on eggshells just waiting for the next seizure."
However, Julie said her savings were almost gone after paying £400 a month for the treatment.
She cannot work because she is caring full-time for Alexa, and knows she will be unable to afford the medication in the long-term.
Julie said that if she could get Alexa's condition stabilised in the coming months, she wants to return to Scotland to join the campaign to get the NHS to prescribe cannabis oil.
But she said she could not return to their previous existence.
'I would do anything'
"I could never go back to that - worrying she might die during every seizure.
"I would beg on the street to pay for her medication. I would do anything to help my child."
A Scottish government spokeswoman said: "We appreciate that watching any loved one suffer is heart-breaking, even more so when it is a child.
"The scheduling of cannabis-based products for medicinal use is reserved to the UK government and we welcome their recent decision to reschedule them, allowing specialist doctors on the GMC specialist register to prescribe such products where appropriate.
"We have issued guidance to clinicians, setting out what the regulatory change means in practice."
She added that the prescription of medication was a clinical decision.
Coming up: Can Cannabis Save My Child? BBC Scotland's Disclosure follows two Scottish mums smuggling prescription cannabis into the country to give to their seriously ill sons.
BBC One Scotland, 21:00 Wednesday 12 June.