The Brexit transition period ended on Jan. 1, 2021, and with it, British children accessing prescriptions for medical marijuana also ended. In December 2020, the UK Department of Health and Social Care sent a letter to patient groups, clinics and stakeholders stating that once the transition period was over, prescriptions issued in the United Kingdom would not be honored by member states of the European Union.
This means that children who are severely epileptic and rely on medical marijuana will not be able to access the treatment they require, seeing as the medical cannabis supply chain is based in the Netherlands.
The letter in question, dated Dec. 15, sent more than two weeks before the transition period ended, made public the intention to make certain that immediate steps were taken to ensure that prescribers were informed of this decision and provided with information regarding alternative marijuana-based medicines.
End Our Pain’s spokesperson stated that the letter was a damaging blow to these families, as they had undergone various challenges to take care of their sick children. The spokesperson commented that the termination of the supply of medical cannabis to the UK from the Netherlands was a matter of life and death for these children, adding that it was vital that the government act to help find solutions that would help these families.
The medical use of marijuana in cases where all other options had been exhausted was legalized in the United Kingdom in 2018. Before the transition period ended, about 40 children in the UK received cannabis oil that had been prescribed to help manage drug-resistant and extreme forms of epilepsy that cause prolonged or frequent life-threatening seizures many times a day when left untreated.
Of the 40 children, only 3 were given their prescription through the National Health Service, meaning that the remaining 37 have to pay to access the prescriptions privately. On a private facility scale, medical marijuana prescriptions may cost nearly £2,500 ($3,397) every month. Factoring in the complications and costs associated with a child who requires major long-term care, many of these families ultimately end up asking for charitable donations to help them acquire the medication. However, since the coronavirus pandemic outbreak in March, a majority of fundraising activities have been shelved.
Alfie Dingley, son of Hannah Deacon, suffers from PCDH19, an extremely rare form of clustering epilepsy; he was the first patient to obtain a permanent medical marijuana license in 2018 in the UK. His mother expressed disappointment at the news of the inaccessible effective medical cannabis treatment, urging the UK and Dutch governments to work together to find a long-term solution to the issue. Other parents echoed similar views, stressing the fact that their children needed the medication, with many fearing for their children’s lives.
Meanwhile, CannAssist International Corp. (OTCQB: CNSC), based in San Diego, California, has proprietary technology that makes different cannabinoids, such as CBD, more absorbable by the body in order to deliver better medicinal outcomes to patients.
NOTE TO INVESTORS: The latest news and updates relating to CannAssist International Corp. (OTCQB: CNSC) are available in the company’s newsroom at https://cnw.fm/CNSC
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