‘I was a shadow of a person, then medical cannabis changed my life’

A devastating car crash left Jim Finch with several life-changing neurological conditions and little hope for his future, but medical cannabis helped him find reasons to live again.

On 1 June 2018, Jim Finch was driving home from work, back to his partner and nine-month-old son, when his car was hit at speed at a junction by another driver.

He was severely injured and the head trauma he suffered left him with  chronic neurological conditions, functional neurological disorder, Tourette’s disorder and fibromyalgia.

Overnight Jim went from a healthy, 29-year-old dad, to being unable to walk or communicate properly and suffering dozens of fits and seizures a day.

He was prescribed ‘hundreds of pills’ to manage his symptoms including Tramadol, Diazepam, Codeine, Lorazepam and Sertraline, which left him, in his own words a ‘vegetable’.

“My hair fell out and I had so little energy that in between seizures and fits I couldn’t get out of bed or move from the sofa,” says the 31-year-old, who lives in Essex.

“I was a shadow of a person.”

Things came to a tragic head in January 2019, when Jim tried to take his own life.

“After the crash I was taking all sorts of medication, my head was all over the place,” he says.

“My life was a mess and I saw no way out.”

A few months later when a friend suggested he try cannabis to manage his symptoms, despite being apprehensive at first, Jim felt he had nothing to lose.

“I was wary about the legality of it and the fact that I had had some negative experiences with paranoia from using cannabis in the past, but the effects were instant, I couldn’t believe it,”he says.

The cannabis calmed Jim’s shakes and reduced his tics so he could form full sentences. Over time he found that his seizures became less and less frequent and within a month of using cannabis he had weaned himself off all of the prescription drugs he was taking.

He can spend time in the garden out of his wheelchair and play with his son, who is now three.

Jim after he discovered medical cannabis

“It has completely changed my life,” says Jim.

“I’m still housebound but I’m not bedbound. I can play with my son. I can get out in the garden, and take the dog for a walk if I’ve got a carer with me.

“Without cannabis I’m a vegetable, I don’t have control of my body. It’s given me the life back that was taken away from me.”

Just a few months earlier, in November 2018, medical cannabis had been legalised in the UK and Jim broached the subject with his doctor.

“I went to my doctor straight away and he supported me 100 percent, he couldn’t believe the change in me,” he says.

“In a way I’m quite lucky in that my conditions are so visible and it’s such an instant relief when I use my medication, that it has the power to change a lot of people’s minds about the medical benefits of cannabis, because they can see it firsthand.”

However after selling his car for £2,000 to fund a private medical cannabis prescription, Jim couldn’t afford the fees long-term and was forced to return to accessing it illicitly.

“At the moment there’s no option for me to get it legally,” he says.

“A big part of going through therapy was getting my head around the fact that now I was a criminal for wanting to be well.

“Obviously there’s a worry, anytime I hear a police siren it gets you because you think that they could be coming for me and I could be about to lose my liberty, lose my son and for what?”

Jim adds: “The criminality of it is unjust and unfair.

“I have to put my health first. The Government’s idea of healthcare is a hell, drugged up to the eyeballs on all sorts of opiates, not being able to move, losing my head, not being able to play with my kid.

“I had all these pills; one for my tics, one for my seizures, three for my pain and they all did different things – or I can have a plant that looks after it all.”

But the criminalisation of medical cannabis patients is not the only injustice at play, according to Jim. There’s also the fact that millions of people are being denied it as a viable option.

“There’s the injustice that people are going to prison for it, and there’s also an injustice that people don’t have access to it,” he says.

“There are millions of other people out there who could benefit from medical cannabis, who don’t need to be suffering as much as they are, because they haven’t been able to try it.

“People are dying from epilepsy because they haven’t had access to cannabis.”

Jim is only too aware of the impact it can have, which is why he’s speaking out.

“When you’re told something is bad, you tend to believe it,” he says.

“It’s not until you’re in these desperate situations like those of us who are sick and disabled, that you’re willing to go and try it. I just wanted to tell my story in the hope that it might help one person or change one mind.”

“It doesn’t make sense that it was okay for me to be wasted on all these prescription drugs, adds Jim.

“When I use cannabis I don’t get wasted – I’m as close to my old self as I have been since before the crash.”

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