Brexit Stymies Medical Cannabis Patients in the U.K.

LONDON, U.K. – British mother Hannah Deacon’s campaign to save her son Alfie life in 2017 led to a change in the law in the United Kingdom enabling cannabidiol medicine to be prescribed. This prescription has helped him become seizure-free after years of as many as 150 seizures a week. However, Britain’s dramatic breakaway from the EU with Brexit meant that this supply was threatened. Her family could be cut off from the supply of CBD oil.  Fortunately, the Dutch government who supplies the oil, recognized the issue and will keep supplying the oil that saved her son’s life for another six-months.

The Dutch government sanctioned continued supply of the medicines despite a Brexit ban on fulfilling prescriptions from the UK.  She received a letter on Thursday from the U.K. Department of Health to inform her that the government in the Netherlands, where the medicine was created, had “confirmed that they will allow continued supply of Bedrocan oil against UK prescriptions for existing patients until 1 July 2021”.

“I cried when I read it. I sat and cried. I was told online and I was quite surprised to be honest. I’ve spent the last two weeks terrified that Alfie’s seizures will recur because of the fact that we could not get any more Bedrolite [Bedrocan]. I didn’t feel that the Department of Health took it seriously enough to keep that medicine supply line safe so I was very angry about that, and very upset,” she said

She had been given just two weeks’ notice by the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) that due to the end of the transition period, “prescriptions issued in the UK can no longer be lawfully dispensed in an EU member state”, leaving her desperately frightened about her son’s future.

“I spoke to this minister about three times … I do feel she is empathic and I do think she understands and I am grateful, but the fight is not over,” she said, as the Dutch decision only gives her a six-month lifeline.