Britain’s stringent rules on medical cannabis harm patients

SATIVEX comes in a small brown glass vial. Each spray, delivered under the tongue or to the cheek, emits 100 microlitres of a solution including alcohol, peppermint oil and a mixture of THC and CBD, the active ingredients in cannabis. GW Pharmaceuticals, its manufacturer, insists it is a “cannabis-based medicine”, not “medical marijuana”, since it is made to exacting pharmaceutical standards. It nevertheless contains extracts from Cannabis sativa, the cannabis flower and plant, and some users report a mild high. It can be prescribed by doctors, most often to sufferers from multiple sclerosis (MS).

Partly as a result, fuzzy fronds are flourishing in British greenhouses. In 2016 Britain harvested 95 tonnes of legally grown cannabis, twice as much as a year earlier, and more than any other country. The International Narcotics Control Board, an independent monitor linked to the UN, reckons that Britain is the world’s largest exporter of legal cannabis (in the form of medical products). And GW has another product, for treatment of drug-resistant epilepsy, under consideration by regulators in America and Europe.