Medical-grade hashish dished out by docs to Brits as £300m enterprise booms

Pain-racked patients are paying fortunes to private doctors for medical-grade cannabis to numb their agony.

Desperate Brits suffering diseases including cancer and multiple sclerosis are turning to the pricey medics
amid calls for the drug to be more easily available on the NHS.

Market researchers Prohibition Partners say Britain’s medical cannabis industry is the second largest in Europe
and will be worth £300million by next year.

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London-born MS victim Julie Gould, 64, said marijuana stopped her killing herself through Dignitas. She also fumed it was “too expensive for the majority of UK citizens”.

Julie added: “I applied for medical cannabis because I’d used it before it was legal for my severe MS pain. It was extremely effective.

“I’d reached the logical conclusion that my quality of life was so poor before going on medical cannabis that I seriously looked into Dignitas.”

Julie added medical cannabis also got her through “hellish” withdrawals she experienced when she changed her
medication for restless legs syndrome.

Medical cannabis was legalised in 2018, after a campaign by the mums of children Billy Caldwell and Alfie Dingley who were diagnosed with rare forms of epilepsy when they were infants.

It can be prescribed on the NHS for severe epilepsy, nausea from chemotherapy and “moderate to severe” MS muscle spasms. But it is only handed out if other treatments have been deemed ineffective.

The use of private facilities to get it prescribed have sent prices skyrocketing. In 2020, 100ml of the cannabis oil cost around £150 – but it is now £350.

Many patients are estimated to have spent at least £5,000 in the last four years on the medication. But the cost is far higher as that doesn’t include crushing private bills for consultations, which can be around £100 a pop.

Patients say they believe NHS doctors are reluctant to hand out prescriptions for medical cannabis as they
view it as a “gateway drug” and not a pain suppressant.

In the first half of this year, private pain relief centre the Curaleaf Clinic said it had experienced a 42% increase in the number of new patients compared with the same period last year.

Its research boss Dr Simon Erridge said due to chronic pain being on the rise it was “only natural” they were “seeing an increase in people exploring other options, such as medical cannabis”.

Despite calls for it to be more widely prescribed on the NHS, experts warn THC – the main psychoactive element
in cannabis – can increase the risk of paranoia and developing dangerous psychotic illness including schizophrenia.

Side-effects of medical cannabis also include decreased appetite, diarrhoea, nausea and dizziness.

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