Saturday 25 June 2022 11:48 PM 9,000 Britons now take cannabis on prescription for medical conditions trends now
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Some 9,000 people in Britain are now taking cannabis legally for medical conditions, The Mail on Sunday can reveal.
Four years after Ministers legalised medicinal use of the Class B drug, NHS doctors remain reluctant to prescribe it because of a lack of strong evidence that it helps sufferers of most illnesses.
But a growing number of private ‘medicinal cannabis clinics’ have sprung up, serving people with problems such as chronic pain, anxiety, and post-traumatic stress disorder.
Users believe that smoking or inhaling vaporised cannabis can help to reduce symptoms, even though reliable evidence from well-run clinical trials is scant.
Pierre Van Weperen, of Grow Pharma, which distributes imported cannabis to patients with prescriptions, said: ‘There are probably 8,000 or 9,000 active cannabis patients in the UK, coming back every month for a prescription.
‘When I started in this industry in the UK two-and-a-half years ago, there were only 80 patients [being prescribed cannabis] in the whole of the country. So the growth curve looks quite impressive.’
A growing number of private ‘medicinal cannabis clinics’ have sprung up in the UK, serving people with problems such as chronic pain, anxiety, and post-traumatic stress disorder
With each patient paying £150 to £200 a month for their cannabis