Britain’s first specialist clinic for medicinal cannabis has opened at The Beeches Consulting Centre in Greater Manchester. Good news… if you can afford £200 for an appointment and £600-£700 a month for a private prescription. The clinic said that the service is aimed at people who have who have “exhausted all existing treatment options”.
The Medical Cannabis Clinics, also coming to London, have been launched by European Cannabis Holdings (ECH). The Manchester branch will be led by Dr David McDowell, a Consultant in Pain Management who issued the first UK prescription for medical cannabis in December. Clinics in London will open across multiple disciplines including neurology and psychiatry in addition to chronic pain, on Harley Street, and in Birmingham later this spring.
Professor Mike Barnes, who has publically championed the legalisation of medical cannabis, will be the clinics’ Clinical Director. He commented: “These clinics represent a much-needed framework to enable access to treatments for a range of serious illnesses, and bring the UK into line with other countries when it comes to pain management. The hope is that over time patients all around the country will have access to the relief that they are looking for.”
The good news is that as production of medical cannabis rises and expands, prices will fall, although it could be a long wait for them to fall significantly enough to be affordable to the vast majority of people. Until then those of us who can’t afford private prescriptions will have to go on growing our own or finding communal solutions…