Medical cannabis importer and distributor, Grow Pharma, has been announced as the founding partner of the ‘Open cannabis’ campaign. The campaign was launched in the UK last month with the aim of igniting honest, open conversation and education around medical cannabis.
Research derived from Open Cannabis polling data revealed that two-thirds of the UK population would consider the use of medical cannabis products if they were available to them. This figure rose to three-quarters in over-55s. However, the data also showed that 80% of the UK public know very little about medical cannabis.
“Our long term aim is to show the government that medical cannabis is safe and effective and should be available through the NHS for a wider group of people.”
Open Cannabis is a multi-media public education campaign, designed by Grow Pharma, to improve patient knowledge of, and access to, cannabis-based medications in the UK.
CEO, Pierre van Weperen, stated that even though, as an importer and distributor of medical cannabis in the UK, Grow Pharma was already aiding access, more still needed to be done:
“We realised that if we want to see real change that will directly benefit the wider public and potential patients, we need to address the lack of accurate information, clarify misconceptions and we need to put patients before competition.
“Our long term aim is to show the government that medical cannabis is safe and effective and should be available through the NHS for a wider group of people.”
Despite cannabis being made legal for medical use in the UK in November, relatively few patients have so far benefitted from the change. Data collected by Open Cannabis suggests that this may be partially due to a general lack of public knowledge on the subject. For example, only 14% of people say they know how to access cannabis medicines, and only 22% say they know which conditions prescribed cannabis medicines might help with.
Ben Langley, CEO of Grow (Grow Pharma’s parent company) said:
“Even under the current system, over a million people suffering daily from debilitating chronic, cancer and neuropathic pain could benefit from medical cannabis if they knew how to access it.”
The Open Cannabis website will serve as the first port of call for both patients and self-medicators who are seeking information about medical cannabis in the UK. Visitors to the website will be able to download the Open Cannabis guide to cannabis medicines and use the ‘find a specialist clinic’ service and cannabis use tracker.
