Philippa Fleming Activist

It’s becoming tiresome on cannabis pages to see so many anti prescription cannabis people slaying those on legal prescriptions. In an ideal world some of us would like to grow our own and I have respect for all of those who do… I admire the people who risk their own freedoms to supply cannabis to sick people who can not afford prescriptions or who are not eligible or who just can not get the ratios of specific cannabinoids to treat their specific conditions.

Prescriptions are not ideal but for so many people they are removing them from a life of addictive pharmaceuticals. Many medicinal cannabis users have never smoked a cigarette let alone a joint so prescription cannabis is opening a whole new world and whilst doing so changing the publics conceived perception on the devils lettuce.

I see many comments like it’s unaffordable and costs more than street weed and I agree it is unaccessible for many. I pay £155.96 per ounce including drs appointments and I have only ever once purchased it off the street for less than that (and it was rough). Whilst in some areas may get it slightly cheaper it’s complete fallacy that it’s much more expensive than street weed, sure you’ve got the really expensive strains but the low cost and med cost strains are perfectly adequate. Pharmaceutical weed is arguably more expensive than home grown. Understandably some people do not have the funds to pay up front and I do think the clinics need to implement payment systems for those who are unable to pay in one go and perhaps allow weekly instalments.

There’s lots of comments about mouldy weed…. One manufacturer had a lot of issues with mould and it affected one or two clinics out of approximately thirteen clinics.
This is not a widespread issue and it was in 2021.
There’s also lots of negativity regarding quality and I agree that this can be an issue compared to home grown cannabis. It’s a bit like buying a supermarket apple and growing your own, the supermarket apple is adequate in taste but it’s not as flavoursome as a homegrown apple. It’s difficult to benchmark it to black market weed as every vendors grow is different.

Lots of complaints about the packaging, I agree it’s not environmentally friendly but neither is the bottled water you are drinking or the pharmaceutical packaging you are using.

For many people they want to be legal, whether it’s issues from neighbours, family, authorities , job or for peace of mind. Some people especially low consumers do not want to risk our livelihoods to grow a few plants especially when we only use 1/2g per day. Some people want consistency of product, my BM vendor was brilliant but he largely grew stardawg and similar sativa/hybrid strains, no good for someone who has a heart condition. In my early days before I understood cannabis I’d be sold a pure indica only to find myself with cardiac issues as it was an indica dominant hybrid.

Many prescription holders like myself want to see change, we want a fair accessible market, we want to see people able to obtain their cannabis freely whether it’s through the NHS, grown at home, private or from a grower with experience. We want to see an end of associated gangs and child exploitation.

I’ve never seen such division in this community and it’s tiresome. I’m an admin on a cannabis court support group and I’ve seen peoples lives destroyed and families broken up because prohibition.

Look at the positives before running the system down, there’s lots of negatives but we should be supporting one another and accepting that cannabis whether it’s homegrown, black market or bought from fat cats is saving lives.

Until we get a government in power with no financial interests in pharmaceutical cannabis or a party with a leader who is pro cannabis we are stuck. And for all of the people who are complaining about irradiated cannabis it’s no different from the food you are buying in the supermarket.

We need to work together on education and reform.

Apologies on my grammar/spelling etc I sadly have an iatrogenic brain injury caused by legal pharmaceutical medication. 😞

A note from Philippa. Thank you Lena for writing this. I agree with you that we need to stop concentrating on the negitive side of this. There are always going to be problems with any new system. All of us including the medical staff are still learning about this medication. We should all be working together to make the process less stressful. Choice is what we require. The choices patients currently have is verry limited so lets campaign to open up new avenues of accessing this wonderful medication.