“We’re passing on everything we learned from our journey”

A new platform has launched to help parents and patients understand the world of medical cannabis. 

MEDCAN is bringing together personal experience with expert knowledge and scientific research from across the world, in a bid to help people understand cannabis.

It has been co-founded by Matt Hughes, the dad of two-year-old medical cannabis patient Charlie Hughes and Hannah Deacon, mum of Alfie Dingley, the first patient in the UK to receive the treatment on an NHS prescription.

From their own experience, when they first began researching cannabis, Matt and Hannah felt there was a need for a place that would educate and inform parents or carers to allow them to work with doctors and ultimately make informed decisions about their loved one’s care.

MEDCAN is working with organisations across the industry, bringing together the expertise of medical cannabis medicine advisor, Dr Dani Gordon MD, scientific lead Dr Callie Seaman, paediatric consultant Dr Bonni Goldstein MD and CBD industry expert Jade Proudman.

As well as explaining the science behind medical cannabis, advice such as dosing guidelines and offering a forum for people to connect all in one place, the platform also hosts webinars with experts from across the world which are free for anyone to attend.

Matt, whose son Charlie has a rare epileptic condition called West syndrome and has been using medical cannabis for around a year now, said: “Hannah and myself both found when we were looking into cannabis that the information was spread out across the internet, there wasn’t any one central place to go to understand it.

“We were fortunate in that we had people that we could turn to and ask questions and we’ve got that understanding after many hours of researching. We just felt that there was something missing to help parents and patients understand cannabis.”

It is hoped that parents can use the site to learn about cannabis and then pass this information onto their children’s doctors.

Matt continued: “We want to get the information across to clinicians that cannabis is safe and effective.

“There’s probably no better way than through parents, because we do have very close relationships with our children’s doctors – we speak with them all the time.

“We are working on collecting research studies and teaching parents to understand these so they are able to pass this information across.”

And while MEDCAN is bound to be a lifeline for many parents like Matt and Hannah, the platform is aimed at helping anyone who feels medical cannabis could help them – or who is curious to find out more.

“We wanted to create an education platform, but also to include our own experiences,” added Matt.

“Everything we have learned from our own journeys and those of other parents, we’re passing that on to people who are new to it all.”