Introduce 'Grow Your Own' Laws for Legal Medical Cannabis Patients (CBPM)

We think patients prescribed 'CBPM' by a medical specialist should be allowed to maintain 3-6 flowering plants (with extra considerations for starting new seedlings).

'GYO' registration database could be maintained via local council, notifying police of local medical grows – similar to Canadian setup.

There are 45,000 legal medical cannabis patients across the UK, prescribed primarily bud/flower or refined oil extracts. Some patients face severe financial difficulty affording their prescription.

Many patients are unable to work, and are forced to turn to cheaper illicit sources due to affordability. "Grow Your Own" is available to cannabis patients in many other countries for this very reason, and we think must also be considered in the UK via a change to Home Office licensing/scheduling.

The Government sympathises with patients suffering from painful and debilitating conditions and can understand their desire to seek the best and most affordable treatment available. However, homegrown cannabis cannot be substituted for Cannabis Based Products for Medicinal Use (CBPMs) and we have no plans to allow this.

In line with the advice of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs, Cannabis-Based Products for Medicinal Use were rescheduled to Schedule 2 under the Misuse of Drugs Regulations 2001 (the 2001 Regulations) on 1 November 2018. If the CBPM product is unlicensed (i.e. without a marketing authorisation granted in accordance with the medicines legislation applicable in the UK) and is being ordered otherwise than for a clinical trial, the decision to order/prescribe the medicine can only be made by a doctor on the Specialist Register of the General Medical Council.

The law itself does not restrict which conditions CBPMs may be prescribed for and there is no legal impediment to specialist doctors prescribing CBPMs where clinically appropriate and in the best interests of patients. It is important to remember that only products meeting the definition of a CBPM, in accordance with medicines legislation, were rescheduled.

Products not meeting this definition (other than cannabis-based medicines that have received marketing authorisation and have been separately scheduled) remain Schedule 1 drugs under the 2001 Regulations. Schedule 1 drugs cannot ordinarily be possessed or supplied except under a Home Office licence. Cannabis cannot be cultivated except under a Home Office licence and the Home Office does not grant licences to grow cannabis for personal consumption.