UK doctors present “leading” research on medical cannabis

Doctors from Sapphire Medical Clinic will present major findings on medical cannabis at an international conference this weekend.

Since 2018 doctors in the UK have been prescribing medical cannabis for several conditions,  such as chronic pain, anxiety, and post-traumatic stress disorder. 

Whilst an increasing number of patients are now receiving therapy, a critical barrier to access is a lack of the right evidence to enable the NHS to fund medical cannabis. 

However, thanks to the efforts of doctors and  scientists the UK is now leading the way in medical cannabis research.  

On Saturday 25 June, doctors from Sapphire Medical Clinics will present 20 individual pieces of research at the annual International Cannabinoid Research Society (ICRS) Annual Conference in Galway, Ireland.

In this they will describe the outcomes and safety of medical  cannabis therapy in patients with a wide spectrum of disorders, including, but not limited to, chronic pain, anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder, insomnia, and childhood epilepsy. 

Within this plethora of research, they will present data from the largest bespoke medical  cannabis registry in Europe, the UK Medical Cannabis Registry, which has now enrolled over 5,000 patients.  

This latest analysis reports the outcomes of nearly 2,833 patients with a range of conditions for which medical cannabis was prescribed since 2019. 

The conditions included chronic non-cancer pain, anxiety, fibromyalgia, and neuropathic pain. The average age of the patients  was 42 years and 43 per cent were women. The patients were assessed across a variety of  validated metrics to assess changes in health at one, three, six and 12 months. 

The researchers report: “This study, the largest observational series of patients prescribed  cannabis-based medicinal products in the UK, demonstrates an association with improved  general health-related quality of life up to 12 months. 

In addition, specific improvements in generalised anxiety and sleep quality were also observed. The majority of adverse events were mild and moderate.” 

They added: “Whilst randomised controlled trials are essential to determine causality, this study helps inform current clinical practice and future trials, whilst also being a  fundamental component of pharmacovigilance.”

Apart from pain, the researchers presented other studies looking at medical cannabis for the  treatment of palliative care, headache disorders, insomnia, depression, post-traumatic stress  disorder and inflammatory bowel disease. 

World-leading research

Commenting on the findings, Dr Simon Erridge, head of research and access at Sapphire Medical Clinics, said: “Medical cannabis is not a panacea, and not all patients respond to  therapy. 

“However, we do know from the latest review of the literature published in the British  Medical Journal of medical cannabis oils in chronic pain that they produce, on average, a 10 per cent improvement in pain scores in patients. That may not sound a lot – but for patients  where nothing else has helped, this reduction in pain is greatly valued.” 

He added: “The research we are presenting at ICRS is very complementary to existing studies and helps us to further understand the long-term effects of therapy. Most notably we have demonstrated both condition-specific and overall improvements to health-related  quality of life. These outcomes are reported by patients and directly reflect changes they experience in day-to-day life.”  

The research also showed that alongside patients who were new to cannabis, those who had previously been accessing it illicitly also reported improvements. 

Dr Erridge continued: “Another very interesting finding that we have demonstrated through sub-group analysis is that in addition to patients who were naïve to cannabis having an overall improvement as a group, a similar effect size was also seen in those previously accessing illicit cannabis. This suggests that the quality and consistency of medical cannabis prescribed by a trained  professional is an important facet of cannabis-based therapy.” 

He described the UK as a “leader” in medical cannabis research, but went onto highlight the need for national bodies to fund more randomised control trials alongside real-world evidence. 

He added: “We are pleased that through collecting, analysing, and publishing this data we are playing  our part in ensuring the UK is a leader in medical cannabis research. However, randomised  controlled trials are still necessary. 

“For the UK to remain on the front foot it is important that funding bodies, such as the National Institute for Health Research, recognise the promising  signals we present in our research and the potential impact these may have through  committing funding towards further randomised controlled trials.”  

“In the meantime, we will continue to publish the promising real-world effects seen in UK  patients.” 

• The CBD brand ‘flying off shelves’ at Queen’s estate shop
• Pain and cannabis medicines – experts present at the Royal Society of Medicine
• How to find the right CBD products for you
• The UK Patient Conference: Medical Cannabis Awareness week 2022
• Rebel wines CBD infused wines make the perfect gift this Christmas