 We're going to start what we what I'd like to call a cannabis speed dating Which is where I'm going to get you all on a table We have a patient and a member of sbrg here and they're going to stay static on each table Basically, I'm going to put you on a table to begin with and then after half an hour 45 minutes I'm going to say change and you're all going to move to a different table The person who is representing the patient's voice is going to tell their story And then there'll be a q&a and then there's an opportunity for everyone to tell their story because the really important thing about today Is that everyone in this room is involved in cannabis in some way in scotland The whole point of us doing this today is to try and get you Involved more in the cannabis environment. So in 2018 the law did change to enable Consultants to prescribe medicinal cannabis on the specialist registrar Despite that, I'm sure many of you know there have been almost none No prescriptions. I don't think any in scotland or at least none through the nhs It was incredibly powerful What happened in 2018 and we thought something would change And it hasn't really there's more to say on that topic, but I just wanted to Introduce you to lisa. So lisa. Do you want to come up? As Anna said i'm lisa. Um, I am the parent of Cole Thompson who is 10 at the moment and uses cannabis Cole was diagnosed with epilepsy at three months old He was taking 20 seizures every night and some drop seizures during the day 2018 coles seizures got incredibly worse and he lost the ability to walk and talk very quickly He was in a wheelchair unable to speak couldn't eat solid food And was told that was it. Cole had brain surgery when he was two and a half Um, unfortunately, it didn't work. We got six months of him being seizure free and then the seizures came back They said to me the only hope for Cole was a second surgery But this time they would disconnect the left from the right side of his brain Which would leave Cole paralyzed down one side and partially sided forever. That was it Um, I decided to take to social media to ask for help And everything came back as cannabis for 10 years. I was a police officer in Glasgow and had a very Tunnel vision To what cannabis did so when everyone mentioned cannabis, I said absolutely not i'm not giving my son cannabis No way I actually only decided to research it to prove everyone else wrong and me right Um and kept finding that actually I was wrong when everyone else was right So I then decided to go to Holland when I was in Holland I got a prescription and smuggled it back into the country illegally Mummy As somebody who had never even had a parking ticket It was pretty bloody terrifying. Um, and I was risking what 14 17 years in prison And also because I was then giving it illegally to my child Came with extra I flew home Cole had been rushed into hospital unresponsive On the 22nd of march and by the 26th of march He was these seizures had reduced by half And then we gave him more and they reduced by half again And by the 11th of april he was back Running into school He was then at the end of april back on his his bike Cole now is completely seizure free. We've had maybe about six seizures in four years Cole's private consultant doesn't believe that the seizures that Cole's had since he's been on cannabis are actually epileptic seizures He takes another drug called phenitone the delantin brand, which is horrific drug very toxic But the nhs are refusing point blank to take him off it because they don't recognize cannabis as a medicine even though Legally they can prescribe it. They don't recognize it. So The delantin believe it or not one of the side effects is seizures If it's too high or too low, it causes seizures So the private consultant believes that actually the seizures that Cole's had aren't epileptic seizures that they're probably because of the phenitone He's fine. He's in mainstream education. He is at taekwondo. He just graded a couple of months ago He's very much um like every other 10 year old And now I've got my boy back despite this despite knowing What's happened Cole's consult consultant refuses to prescribe cannabis based medicine I know everyone's got a different story, but it's just to sort of Understand where this anger is coming from and we all have it understand how much life can be shifted by this medicine and really to Start to think about how we in this room Can shift the narrative Because one thing that we need to know and we need to remember is that cannabis medicine is the oldest medicine known to man It was prescribed up until 1971 in britain for over 100 different ailments Some years ago. There was an archaeological dig At sutra, which my mother actually took me to and at that dig they found cannabis In the soil and it was the dig on a medieval monastery And the medieval monastery had used cannabis obviously for something and then there were two other digs in five at the black lock and cool conker lock where hemp and cannabis were found in the soil stratas So we do have a lot of historical evidence For cannabis being used in scotland in the medieval period and before and after what I really want us to do Is just change the narrative instead of this idea that somehow this is a new medicine and the rest of the world are kind of You know moving with the times and in scotland. We need to go with this new idea We need to remember that this is our medicine. We use it You know many of us use it on a daily basis For well-being for fun for pleasure for medicinal for all sorts But there are voices here that need to count and we need to feed in to the scottish government I've lived the chronic pain since I was 13 years old after a horse riding accident when I turned 18 I was on 3500 milligrams Cocodamil four times a day Of course that stuff wasn't starting to work and I was getting spasms So they started adding dichrofenic and then that wasn't working So they added back to fame and then they added deloxo team and then they added amitriptyline And then it was nor a trippling and it was coming off the back profound Then it was on the emet brazil because that was all damaging my stomach and making me tired The list was endless, right? I'd get up at 11 o'clock in the morning two hours to get dressed I would do class for two hours and I'd have to go back to bed I would see my peers went out to nightclubs drinking partying Walking into town and I just had to stay at home in bed Taking all these tablets, but when I found out I had endometriosis the first thing the doctor then said to me was I'm really sorry, but you might not be able to have children Now at this point my childhood had been in and out of hospitals getting operations It had been pain killers I was fighting so hard just to try a 15 hour course at college to do music And then I was told that I'm sorry. You might not be able to have kids like at this point I was on 480 tablets a month and I think that was probably one the point that I kind of understood that I was depressed and I didn't actually see the point and kind of continuing on anymore like What is the point I'm fighting so hard. I'm taking so many drugs Just to manage a 15 every week lifestyle. It really did feel cute It was that point in start of fourth year my friend kind of said to me had you tried cannabis now For a music student. I was still like quite drunk, right? I didn't drink, you know, I would spend my money on Lord of the Rings and stuff like that instead of like going out drinking So I was like, oh my gosh, I'm not going to spoke cannabis. That's dangerous. You know, I was so against it You know, I thought that what the doctors were giving me they're giving me it for a reason. It's medical. It must be okay So when I read into it I found the reasons why it was bad. It wasn't a medicine. I was scunnered, right? I was afraid that I was so crossed that It was being taken from people Not for medical reasons, you know, it was political reasons and so forth like that So I tried it. I remember the first night I did it I slept the whole night through without without nor tripped in without everything for the first time since I was like 13 So from and I know this sounds unbelievable. I know it really does, right? But literally from that fourth year, right? I dropped all the medications and I was just uncoquotable because I needed still pain relief and I couldn't guarantee cannabis all the time. So I needed that as a backup I was at uni all the time and I started my own music studio I was working in community choirs and doing like work like that. I was You know doing musicals. I was actually out. I wasn't just fighting so hard Just to maintain a little half-life. I was actually out consuming and enjoying bits of it So that continued and you know, my piano student got really successful I was a really great teacher So I had this reputation like I had to be so careful with to not ruin it because You know, if I got caught with cannabis my pvg would be done on my community work all the dementia choirs Everything that I went out and did was at risk for me using this cannabis On on the market that we had it there was a couple of times when I was at it, you know Picking up from a dealer in a car park and they would try to elicit like a sex favor for me instead of payment You know, I was having to go to city car parks late at night having to wait for a strange man to come drop stuff off It was a and I also had to balance Not getting caught not losing my entire reputation all this work that I did the young ones and everything It was all at risk until I found project 2021, right? And I know this sounds so daft that I found it on reddit and I was like no no way crap There's no way that cannabis is legal in the UK like medically surely I would have heard something by now because at this point I'd be smoking for a couple years and I was just waiting for this legislation to come out at that point I was working in a suicide crisis shelter for kids that I helped build up during the pandemic And I was able to say to my employer Listen, I've now got the stuff that surgeons and doctors get in places like America and Australia People with decision-making powers. This is what they use This is what I'm using and everything it was able to change from there You know, I didn't feel like I had to hide myself. I wasn't putting anyone at risk I wasn't risking my family who felt conflicted seeing me in pain My brother was I don't want to see men take advantage of you. I don't want to see you get bothered. The difference it's made being able to access it legally Has changed absolutely everything for me. I prescribe cannabis I'm a GP and I got interested in it a few years ago and I do prescribe it It is through a private clinic. I would love to see it Becoming available on the NHS. I also work in drugs and alcohol And certainly for me it's safety profile of cannabis is fantastic Compared to a lot of the things you prescribe in Scotland We have a terrible drug deaths issue and I would love to be able to prescribe Cannabis rather than diazepam and it's possible that in the future We might even be able to use medicinal cannabis in the addictions field Stopping drinking I've got Mike at this table because Mike helped me to get my first prescription And helped to get me legal which was really important I'm a recovering alcoholic. I now haven't had a drink for about 11 or 12 years For the first four or five years I managed through consistent AA going two to three times a week But it didn't help me sleep. It didn't help with my anxiety. All it did was help me not to drink And then I was out one night at a party with a friend and he brought out some cannabis and I took some And I had an amazing night's sleep and I managed to stop my head Because my problem is I can't turn my head off. I can't stop at night my head motor And which and believe me becomes deliberate Because you don't sleep if you don't sleep then you don't have a life really And Mike helped me to go and see the right clinicians In the beginning it was the medical cannabis clinics Who then so I have moved from because I wasn't overly happy with their dispensary To my medica, but I gained a prescription. I take about 60 grams a month I get a combination of low THC Sativas and and higher THC indicators That I can take during the day My doctor advises me to take them as and when I need them not on a not on a fit A set routine. So I mean, I haven't taken any cannabis today. I haven't felt the need I haven't felt anxious about an angle or upset about an angle and And I was coming here, which I was really looking forward to which is all helps Cannabis for me helps me to A stop drinking and B give me the quality of life Which I think everyone deserves but it helps me to have And that's why I do believe that Many and many other people deserve the the chance to have access to to cannabis It needs to be controlled and needs to be regulated Because I need to be sure about what I'm getting You don't have the structure around it in in the country to really Regulate it to give people access to ever get to the point where The NHS might fund it You know as a cost of a medicine for a month It's probably a lot less than most other medicines that are dispensed every day from routine pharmacists But we work in a very traditional medical model The training is the bad It's just absolutely bad Yeah, not that medical school. There's absolutely no teachings about the endocannabinoid system You want them to carry on taking the medication they're being given but it's not actually helping them with the cannabis does And that's where they're coming from it's not where I'm coming from because it's my job to tell them To take the medication So I do tell them to take the medication but the cannabis will help them a lot more I'm a neurologist or was I'm now a cannabis physician. I suppose this is not in to a career really And I was involved for a long time about 20 years ago with GW Pharma when they developed what turned out to be the first cannabis medicine called Sadivix Um, then nothing happened for about a decade because it wasn't widely used Then I was asked to do a report for the party parliamentary group on drug policy reform Which I think helped didn't change the law but it helped develop the discussion about it again Then I was involved with Hannah Deacon whose son Alfie Dingley got the first prescription Uh for anybody in the UK. I'm not a cannabis user really. I don't use it very often Um, but when I do The experience is uh Well, it was so profoundly life-changing. I had a rush of empathy that I just didn't have before at uh just Influx of Being able to maybe just relate to people that I didn't have before My life's completely different now. It's completely better now. And it was because of that it was because of cannabis What you said really resonates that switch that Flip that happens because there's a moment that I remember specifically where I used cannabis in a scenario where I grew up with a very busy mind and lots of guilt trips I was in a catholic school and all this evidence was with me and I meditated I was learning to meditate and learning to do yoga and um I decided to use cannabis to meditate one day and I had this huge moment where like All the thoughts that I'd ever thought about myself in a negative way We're all contained in one circle and With the looseness that the weed had given me I was able to just like let that go And something in me just went It was the most powerful feeling I'd ever had what I found interesting about malta was um Malta legalized medical cannabis just before the uk did Around the same at same year just before early in the same year Per capita, they have 10 times more Prescriptions patient prescriptions than the uk so in the uk we're we're saying that patient uptake is slow And saying that awareness is needed to get more patients on board malta per capita has 10 times more patients and has decided to legalize non-profit adult use social clubs as a way to optimize Patient experience not just for the recreational access But because patients saying their needs were not being properly accommodated I'm highly active in trying to get a wider range of medical cannabis available on the nhs here in scotland and in the 80 kingdom Unfortunately because the 1971 misuse of drugs act It's in a category whereby research has been very limited for over 50 years We made it very difficult for the medical profession to access this hemp plant And have it in their laboratories legally and to use it and to test it because of that There's a very little research here in the 80 kingdom. So we tend to also not very good at looking abroad So we want to do it all over again and reinvent the wheel in the 80 kingdom But we're very slow to get into that stage where we're allowing people access to the plant To do all the medical research which will keep people happy because I understand you can't just say I've got a new medicine. Let's put it in the marketplace. There has to be a thinks There has to be taste made I get all that but we're just incredibly slow at it And I think we should be able to speed up that process given the knowledge We should be leading some other countries I think scotland has a unique opportunity in that There is the opportunity to have this discourse with patients with patient groups who You know are really the biggest stakeholders in all of this and to ensure that we model a system that works for them Because if the model doesn't work for the patients Who the hell is it for? right and Governments can't afford to make that model for pharmaceutical companies So that the money is extracted from the public purse from the taxes that we all pay To prop up billionaires We actually need a model where the The stakeholder who is the patient and the gp at the forefront actually get to have the majority saying what goes on So allowing gps to prescribe would be a major major Improvement and to allow those consults to be nhs subsidized And then as that happens to be able to Allow the the products themselves to be partially or fully subsidized in australia Many of the consults are subsidized but not the product but the large numbers of prescriptions and The large number of products means the prices come down enormously in the last few years 300 000 odd scripts have been written You know if we could say that something like that could happen in scotland We would we should see a reduction in the public spending On other treatments because cannabis can do a lot for patients Who are currently spending a lot of money or The government is spending a lot of money treating them with lots of products that actually don't do the job I do have something that I really need to talk to you about And that is to do with the scottish cannabis consortium and how we're actually going to affect policy change Because we're here in this room together. We've all connected. It's been wonderful. The energy has been bubbling and flowing But we're going to leave And where's that energy going to go? You know, and I really I want to I want to present you with a couple of options. Some of them are doable some of them aren't our vision is to Use the scc As a way of enacting policy change by using the knowledge and experience and expertise Of everyone who engages in the in this group and this can happen by two ways So basically in scotland as you probably know cannabis is not is not Is not legal. It's controlled by the uk and we have a Weird legal situation where if you have a prescription, it's a schedule b Which means it's medicinal if you don't have a prescription. It's a schedule one Which means it's got no health benefits whatsoever. It's amazing. It's like fucking alchemy an accident changes from harmful to non-harmful And depending on the context the idea is I want to get working groups in the scc And there are two avenues that we can affect immediate or at least quite quick change One is through the health improvement scotland health is a devolved matter And it's governed by health improvement scotland. We have two Institutions within health improvement scotland that are really important for the cannabis one is sign Scottish intercollegiate guidance network and smc the scottish medicines consortium point is these are the ones that provide the Guidance on prescribing at the moment clinicians in scotland are using nice guidance But as lisa and I found out when we tried to take nice to a judicial review We don't have any legal standing in scotland. So we can't challenge the nice guidance So the only way that we can get guidance that is implementable and challengeable in scotland is through sign And we also have smc and they are more than happy and more than willing to engage with us on looking to review cannabis based medicine guidance We just need the team to do it and i'm suggesting that we get two teams together One team which is to look at developing the evidence base for pain cancer ms nausea and eczema Which are the The conditions that nice also cover too. So, you know, we're kind of covering our backs. We're playing the game You know, but what what we're going to do is we have an opportunity in scotland scotland has what's called a realistic medicine policy It's implemented by the scottish government It's this idea that there's a dialogue between the patient and the practitioner and that any form of medicine Is given with this dialogue and the idea is it's widens up the remit of evidence We can use a wider range of evidence including the voice of users When they make that decisions Decisions so there's a real major opportunity The second one is for smc. So so sign deal with Conditions and they make recommendations for prescribing on conditions smc deal specifically with Drugs we really want to get Bedro like cannabis as a option for scottish patients on the scottish nhs formulary And that is also doable. So really what it all it is is that we need to get a group of people together to once again develop the evidence base or you know gather the evidence base and set up a patient company review If we get the team together you're talking two to three years. We could have Cannabis-based medicine Prescribable for pain cancer ms nausea and eczema because there's a lot of evidence to support cannabis on those On those conditions and we could potentially have bedro light for treatment resistant epilepsy for children in scotland They're doable. The other avenue is if we want to start looking at so we can't change the law But we can play with the law Because the law is creative and a little known fact that majority of cannabis offenses can be dealt with with by a fine rather than Conviction and indeed in scotland at the moment all cannabis possessions Are allegedly dealt with by a fine But one fundamental aspect that just blew my brain when I came across a statistic is that when you look at the statistics for cannabis possession The majority of people getting arrested for cannabis possession are young men between the ages of 18 and 24 years old Either in parks or in someone's house And of course to top it off is the majority is in areas of lower deprivation or lower socioeconomic development You know, so we're dealing with a stigmatization of a group of people in society A targeting of a group of people in society The way to deal with the legal side of it is a lord advocates reference and the lord advocate needs to be convinced that in scotland It is not in the public interest to police The cultivation or possession of cannabis and once again, that's totally doable You know, you've got a human rights argument. You've got a social justice argument You've got it, you know, you've got an equity argument. You've got all sorts of arguments We just need to get the papers together and the team together To present it. I've already had discussions with three of those people and they agree So basically you develop a guideline development group. That would be us, you know in collaboration with Sign experts. You then do systematic literature reviews, formation and grading of recommendations Consultation with user groups and peer review by people not only just Academic researchers, but also by patients as well. So the whole process within scotland is very geared towards a developed Collaboration between the patient and the GP or sorry the consultants and the the guidance publication, dissemination and review And I'm going to blow these candles out at the end of the show I want us to do a wee meditation again just to close the event off If you could all close your eyes and take a deep deep breath And I wanted to breathe into your solar plexus Breathe really deeply into your solar plexus And as you're doing that Take the energy that you've felt The feelings from the conversations that you've had the ideas that have popped into your head The knowledge that you've exchanged The dream of what you want the future to look like And have it in your belly. Have it in your belly as a burning burning sort of we're not burning But gonna sorry Oh, well, you know it's all part of the process So yeah, anyway laughter aside, but that's good. It's the energy. It's the fucking it's the energy So get it in your belly and I want you to just Really focus on that And imagine that it's gonna manifest. This is how we manifest stuff. Everything is a potential everything Is here in this moment now And the story has not been written We're gonna write that story and we're gonna write it with social justice equity human rights Community and communication