Teagan Appleby home after Epidiolex hospital treatment
Teagan Appleby of Aylesham, Kent has been successfully treated for her epilepsy with Epidiolex in hospital, thanks to an intervention by Dover and Deal MP Charlie Elphicke.
The MP appealed to the chief executive of the Trust which runs Evelina Childen’s Hospital, after which Kent-based GW Pharmaceuticals was permitted to supply Epidiolex to medics treating Teagan.
Teegan’s condition stabilised and she was able to return home. Her mother Emma wants her to be treated with THC medicine but has said that they may have to obtain it abroad.
French study recommends legalising therapeutic cannabis
A scientific committee convened by the French government has concluded that cannabis should be legalised for therapeutic use.
Convened by the ANSM (the French National Agency for the Safety of Medicines and Health Products), the committee said that it would be “appropriate to authorise the use of therapeutic cannabis […] in certain clinical situations and in cases where [existing] therapies provide insufficient relief or are not well tolerated”.
The committee said the law should authorise the use of the plant in cases of severe pain, for certain types of epilepsy, as part of ancillary care for cancer patients, in certain “palliative situations”, and for the muscular contractions linked to multiple sclerosis.
Despite being one of the dominant European powers, France is not one of the 21 EU countries which has legalised the therapeutic use of cannabis.
UK’s ‘first cannabis oil superstore’
The UK’s “first cannabis oil superstore” is set to open in Derbyshire, according to DerbyshireLive. Hemp HQ, which will be based in Grabvy Stree, Ilkeston, will sell a variety of products including vapes and hemp-based products.
The store is part of a joint venture between vape shop Cloud 57 in Nottinghamshire and 36-year-old Sandiacre businessman Mark Morgan, who took inspiration from the US.
He said: “I went to New York recently and there are coffee shops dedicated to putting CBD in their coffee. It’s the new thing and I want to bring some of that over here.”
Lord of the manor lobbies for hemp farm
Fred Fellowes (left), the heir to the title Baron de Ramsey who formerly ran the Secret Garden Party, is hoping “to become Britain’s first producer of CBD oil for domestic use”, according to the Telegraph.
“We’re not talking about drugs and farming them,” Fellowes says. “We’re talking about a plant that has been demonised by a drugs policy.”
The Ramsey estate is a 7,000 acre stretch surrounding Abbots Ripton Hall in Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire. But it cannot be used in the way Fellowes would like at the moment because Government licencing rules prohibit the production of CBD oil using the flowers of industrial hemp.
Hemp growers need a Home Office licence, which applies to the stalk and seeds and does not allow for use of ‘green’ material – including the flowers of the plant. According to Guy Coxall, compliance director of the Cannabis Trades Association, the current stringent regulation around the production of CBD oil for domestic use means nobody is yet to move into the industry. “There are a lot of farmers who would like to,” he adds.
At the Country Land Association’s Rural Business Conference in Westminster last month Fellowes lobbied environment secretary Michael Gove about the “inequity” of imported CBD oil being sold on British high streets.
“There is massive interest and nascent excitement among the other landowners in East Anglia I have spoken to,” says Fellowes.
