Cross-Party Group on Medical Cannabis AGM Date and Time rd 23 September 2023 @6pm Minute Present MSPs • Tess White MSP • Oliver Mundell MSP (online) Invited guests • Professor David Nutt • Kyle Esplin • Will Ewart • Kirsty Morrison (Cancard) Non-MSP Group Members In person • Linda Hendry • Andrew Lundy (patient subgroup) • Claire Bwelec (patient subgroup) • Anna Ross (University of Edinburgh - secretary) • James Smith (Cannabis Industry Council) • Karen Gray (parent) • Jan Alexander (industry) Online • Carol Dew (patient subgroup) • Marc Landers (patient subgroup_ • David Johnstone (patient subgroup) • Hamish Clegg (Industry) 1 Apologies Pauline McNeil MSP Agenda Item 1 Update on children with epilepsy • Following Lisa and Cole story – Cole has been taken off Phenytoin • Karen and Murray – taken case to ombudsman – reduction is seizures but facing supply issues of medicinal cannabis Agenda item 2 Policing • Spoken to young man who has been strip searched twice while in possession of prescribed medicinal cannabis – had blood taken and spent a night in the cells • Another 71-year-old man – had his car stolen and the men who took it drove it into his property – when the police came, they discovered the man’s cannabis supply growing in his garden and arrested and held him in a cell – they even took his trousers as they claimed he was a suicide risk – shows police are aware they are inflicting trauma • Over half of minor offences are cannabis related • Lord Advocate starting to acknowledge nuances in the law Agenda item 3 Presentations Professor David Nutt • Establishing state of play – medicinal cannabis in the UK • Disappointing that prescription is not yet available on the Scottish NHS • Worked with patients with chronic pain, anxiety/trauma related pain, sleep disorders • In one cohort, nearly half of patients have been able to stop talking opioids • PTSD and depression also being studied • Published a paper in leading pharmaceutical journal – used Roland’s annual lecture to the Royal College of Physicians which argued for new ways of evaluating evidence as basis – utilised cannabis with a sample of children with epilepsy - found 96 percent chance of responding • Provides real world evidence, which is often claimed to be lacking • In process of setting up a legal challenge 2 • NICE guidelines are backwards • Possibility to isolate out Scottish figures to prove case?