Boris Johnson has U-turned on a promise to discuss the use of medical cannabis to treat epileptic children.
The Prime Minister vowed to take up the issue personally with Scottish MP Ronnie Cowan in October in response to a
Commons question captured on Parliamentary TV.
But more than two months later, the SNP politician has been told he will only be granted a meeting with junior health minister Baroness Blackwood.
Medical guidelines published by the National Institute of Clinical Excellence (NICE) last year stated that medical cannabis drugs should be available on the NHS.
But parents, including Scots mum Lisa Quarrell, claim they have been forced to break the law and pay thousands of pounds to access medication such as Bedrolite.
Inverclyde MP Cowan is vice-chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on medical cannabis under prescription.
He said: “Following on from my question to the Prime Minister on October 23 regarding the provision of medical cannabis on prescription, I have now been offered a meeting with Baroness Blackwood in her capacity as the parliamentary under-secretary of state for life science.
“Obviously, as my question was addressed to the Prime Minister and he indicated at the time that he ‘will take it up personally with him…’, I would have preferred a conversation with him directly but these are the hoops that
opposition backbenchers like me have to jump through.
“Maybe most disturbing is not that I have been pushed down the pecking order, but that it will have taken 78 days to get this far.
“Those who are currently sourcing medical cannabis either illegally or legally, but at great expense, face up to their conditions every day and every night.
“Any and all delays hit them hardest and yet they are the very people who are being ignored.
“Their lived experience can bring huge value to the debate and to the solution.
They have been abandoned to find the correct dosage from safe, reliable sources.
“They have been used as human guinea pigs while pharmaceutical companies churn out less effective and more addictive products.
The system of prescription unveiled on November 1, 2018, has proven to be completely ineffective and GPs are still untrained and therefore unwilling to prescribe.
“I shall be interested to hear what Baroness Blackwood has to say but I shall be pushing for a timetable of events that will train GPs in the use of medical cannabis, license products that are already being imported and used, provide stimulus to develop more products for a wide range of conditions and provide medical cannabis on prescription free under the NHS.”
Lisa, 38, from East Kilbride, has said she has been left paying £840 a month for cannabis medicine to treat her seven-year-old son Cole’s epilepsy.
The former police officer risked jail when she began smuggling drugs from the Netherlands to treat his seizures.
Mum-of-two Lisa claims her GP has been keen to take over the cost, but has been told the NICE guidelines don’t cover Scotland.
