Scotland’s first legalised Cannabis clinic has said that it welcomed more than 500 new patients across Scotland via remote consultations during its opening week.
Sapphire Medical Clinics announced in March that it had received Scotland’s first Healthcare Improvement Scotland registration to safely prescribe medical cannabis to patients.
It is hoping to offer face-to-face appointments once restrictions are lifted.
In November 2018, medical Cannabis was legalised in the UK to allow doctors to prescribe it in certain situations.
Cannabis-based medicines can be considered for a vast range of conditions, including arthritis, anxiety and epilepsy.
It will be using Scottish patient data in the UK Medical Cannabis Registry to grow the evidence base for medical cannabis prescribing.
It will also be offering a scheme to help patients who are unable to pay the expensive costs to use the clinic to those enrolled in the UK Medical Cannabis Registry.
The company commissioned a YouGov poll surveying 10,000 UK adults to get a representation of the population’s understanding of CBD.
It found that 23% of the population say the main barrier to medical cannabis access is the lack of certainty if it is legal - two years after it was made legal.
It revealed that 9% of the population is taking over the counter or prescribed CBD products and 85% of the population doesn’t know that medical cannabis is less expensive than over-the-counter wellness CBD.
Dr Mikael Sodergren, managing director and academic lead at Sapphire Medical, commented: “The statistics clearly highlight the need for further education around medical cannabis, illustrated by the fact that almost a quarter of the population are still unaware that medical cannabis is legal.
“To bridge this education chasm, Sapphire Medical established the UK Medical Cannabis Registry, which is a comprehensive, prospective registry designed to collate outcomes of medical cannabis therapy.
"The aim of the registry is to expand our understanding of medical cannabis as a treatment in the UK, by collecting and analysing clinical data, and I am thrilled that Scottish patients will be contributing to the advancement of this.”
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