Medicinal Cannabis is due to be available in the UK on prescription from November the 1st 2018. This decision was made after a high profile case about a young lad who found it useful to reduce his seizures as without it the severity of his epilepsy would be life threatening. 

There are also many life changing long term conditions that could potentially benefit from the use of medicinal cannabis. Many are not considered life threatening in the traditional sense but cause daily distressing symptoms sometimes leading to suicidal or suicidal thoughts. Living with a condition that causes these symptoms can make it incredibly difficult to live a full life and often causes the person to be severely disabled including being bedbound or housebound. 

There is anecdotal evidence citing medicinal cannabis is helpful to reduce pain and for that reason further research is needed to evaluate but many believe that it will be beneficial it will be for a variety of long term chronic illnesses and the myriad of symptoms they experience. There are many conditions including Fibromyalgia, EDS, Lupus, MS, CRPS, ME, RA, IBS, Crohns, Lyme Disease among others........ that would find relief from medicinal cannabis.

The USA recently reported an Opioid Crisis and possibly due to this the UK government responded with a document advising Healthcare Professionals to try to reduce Opioid and high risk medications. However, many are being advised to do so without any other option to help them live with pain and other symptoms they are experiencing apart from Cognitive Behavioural Therapy and mindfulness etc.  Whilst CBT and other mental health therapies may be helpful in some cases to accept chronic illness it cannot be a long term solution to those living with often distressing symptoms. There are millions of people UK wide who live with these debilitating conditions and surely a holistic approach would be the ideal way to help people.

If we, the UK are to avoid an Opioid crisis I personally feel that providing medical cannabis on prescription for these people can help them live with their conditions. It is extremely distressing living with these symptoms 24/7 as the condition can be extremely debilitating and/or disabling and can also be detrimental to a person's mental health. They often have symptoms that include chronic pain & chronic fatigue that affect their ability to do normal activities of daily living and in some cases it robs them of any quality of life altogether. 

There are many reasons that this would benefit the UK and it's citizens, the first reason being the most important and it is the reason which prompted this petition. However they are other obvious benefits as listed here;

1. Pain Relief & symptom control equalling a better quality of life 

2. Potentially help to avoid an Opioid & high risk crisis in the UK

3. Save NHS funding as medicinal cannabis is cheaper than a combination of conventional prescription medications

4. Medicinal Cannabis is a natural product and this should mean less side effects that often are a drain on the NHS.

5. Possible able to go back to work to financially support their own families saving government money that would be given in ESA & PIP benefits.

Therefore, we call for the UK government to make Medicinal Cannabis available for long term conditions.

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