A Formal Rebuttal to THE UK Government Response on Home-Grown Medical Cannabis

1. Government Claim: “Homegrown cannabis is not a safe or appropriate substitute for regulated CBPMs.”

Rebuttal: This is a misleading assertion that lacks scientific foundation and ignores extensive international precedent. Home cultivation of medical cannabis is legally permitted in numerous jurisdictions—including Canada, Germany (under medical supervision), and many U.S. states—where it has been successfully integrated into regulated healthcare systems.

• In Canada, medical cannabis patients have been permitted to grow their own since 2001 under Health Canada’s Marihuana Medical Access Regulations, with the courts affirming this as a constitutional right (Allard v. Canada, 2016).

• A 2018 European Parliament report titled Cannabis for Medical Use: A Scientific and Regulatory Review acknowledged the feasibility of home cultivation for patients in several EU member states, citing patient autonomy and access barriers as justification.

• A 2021 peer-reviewed study in Frontiers in Pharmacology found no significant difference in self-reported symptom relief between patients using home-grown and pharmacy-grade cannabis. In fact, the home-grown cohort reported fewer side effects (Krcevski-Skvarc et al., 2021).

2. Government Claim: “There is no support to suggest homegrown cannabis is medically viable.”

Rebuttal: This is demonstrably false. Decades of peer-reviewed research and international patient programs confirm the safety and efficacy of whole-plant cannabis, including that cultivated by patients themselves.

• The National Academies of Sciences (U.S.) 2017 review, one of the most comprehensive cannabis assessments to date, concluded there is “conclusive or substantial evidence” that cannabis is effective for chronic pain in adults.

• Patients growing their own cannabis often tailor cultivars and cannabinoid/terpene profiles more effectively than mass-distributed products, increasing therapeutic success (Lucas et al., 2013).

3. Government Claim: “Only cannabis produced for medical use can be assumed to have the correct concentrations and ratios.”

Rebuttal: This claim ignores the reality of small-batch, lab-tested cultivation methods used worldwide. The suggestion that only pharmaceutical companies can standardise or ensure “correct ratios” is a fallacy. In fact, UK patients have regularly reported inconsistencies, dryness, loss of potency, and terpene degradation in products from licensed distributors.

• Most UK-distributed cannabis is irradiated to meet import guidelines—this process significantly degrades terpenes and alters the plant’s medicinal properties (Hazekamp, 2016).

• In contrast, patient-grown cannabis, when cultivated with proper education and testing, retains full-spectrum efficacy and can be adjusted per medical need, just as is done in Canada and parts of the EU.

4. Government Claim: “Safety, quality and efficacy cannot be ensured in homegrown cannabis.”

Rebuttal: The UK’s own legal medical cannabis supply chain fails to meet the very standards the government invokes to justify banning home-growing.

• Advocacy groups like PLEA (Patient-Led Engagement for Access) and MedCan Support have documented patient experiences of mouldy, brittle, low-potency, or mislabelled cannabis from licensed UK providers.

• Countries like Germany allow patients to apply for home cultivation with a medical licence where commercial supply fails to meet patient needs—an acknowledgement that home growing can be controlled, ethical, and effective.

5. The Deep Hypocrisy of the UK’s Import-Heavy Cannabis Policy

While banning patients from growing a single plant, the UK remains one of the world’s largest exporters of medical cannabis (UN INCB Report, 2021). Yet, instead of offering UK-grown cannabis to its own patients, it imports vast quantities of cannabis flower from abroad—including Canada, the Netherlands, Israel, and Australia

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This creates a deeply flawed system with damaging consequences for medicine quality and patient health:

• Imported cannabis is routinely packaged in toxic plastic containers that leach chemicals, especially during long-haul shipping.

• It undergoes major temperature fluctuations, UV exposure, and ageing—all of which degrade cannabinoids and obliterate terpenes, rendering the medicine significantly less effective.

• Cannabis flower is a perishable botanical, not a shelf-stable pharmaceutical. Treating it like long-life aspirin ignores basic horticultural and biochemical reality.

All of this is done under the guise of “safety”—when in fact it benefits corporate distributors and protects monopolised supply chains. The only explanation for this process is economic convenience and profit margin—not therapeutic integrity.

“The UK bans patients from growing a plant in their garden—but has no issue flying in degraded cannabis from halfway across the world in plastic jars.”

This absurdity isn’t just unethical. It is ecologically wasteful, scientifically negligent, and medically harmful.

6. Government Contradiction: “Patients can't choose cultivars” vs. “Mamedica allows selection for a fee”

Rebuttal: This contradiction exposes the reality of the UK’s two-tiered medical cannabis system, where wealth determines access.

With providers like Mamedica, patients can pay extra to access a wider range of cultivars, explicitly showing that “safety” is not the determining factor—money is.

This has effectively made medical cannabis a class-based therapy. Working-class patients, many of whom suffer from chronic conditions and cannot work full-time, are being priced out of legal access. This is particularly damning under a new Labour government, elected on promises of fairness, equity, and compassionate healthcare.

“We voted Labour. What we got was a pay-to-play healthcare model where only those who can afford private prescriptions are permitted control over their own care.”

7. Government Reliance on 2018 Evidence Review by Dame Sally Davies

Rebuttal: The 2018 review is now seven years outdated, written before medical access had even begun in practice, and before most of the world’s significant cannabis studies had been published. It dismisses all grown cannabis—including patient-cultivated—as "street cannabis", which is a false equivalence.

The landscape has evolved dramatically:

• Since 2018, dozens of countries have launched national cannabis programs.

• Clinical research on full-spectrum, terpene-rich cannabis has accelerated, with real-world patient data supporting effectiveness in treatment-resistant epilepsy, PTSD, MS, and chronic pain.

• International data supports cultivar personalisation and full-spectrum use, which the 2018 review fails to consider.

8. Government Claim: “The barrier is evidence, not regulation.”

Rebuttal: This is disingenuous. The UK government actively blocks trials involving full-plant cannabis, imposes Schedule 1 restrictions that make research prohibitively difficult, and refuses to fund studies unless they focus on isolated compounds.

• Regulatory barriers stifle the ability to produce real-world evidence, while also keeping most cannabis-based medicine in the hands of private providers.

• NHS doctors face confusing guidelines, professional risk, and lack of training, all of which discourage prescribing.

The suggestion that the system is open to good science—when it is structurally closed to gathering it—is dishonest.

9. The Importance of Whole Plant Medicine and Terpenes

The entourage effect—a well-documented synergy between cannabinoids and terpenes—is fundamental to cannabis medicine. Terpenes are not inert. They are bioactive compounds shown to reduce inflammation, improve absorption, modulate psychoactivity, and support mental health outcomes.

• Journal of Cannabis Research (2021) shows terpenes influence CB1/CB2 receptor behaviour, enhancing or tempering THC effects.

• British Journal of Pharmacology confirms the independent therapeutic value of beta-caryophyllene, myrcene, linalool, and other terpenes.

Irradiated CBPMs often arrive devoid of meaningful terpene content. Home-grown medicine, by contrast, allows patients to preserve the entire plant profile—improving efficacy, reducing side effects, and enabling precision treatment.

Conclusion: The Government’s Position is Scientifically and Ethically Indefensible

Patients in the UK are being denied affordable, effective cannabis medicine based not on risk, but on regulatory inertia, class-based access, and a refusal to update policy in line with global best practice.

We therefore call for:

1. Legal, licensed home cultivation of medical cannabis, as seen in Canada, Germany, and multiple U.S. states

2. Modernised medical cannabis regulations that recognise the role of terpenes, cultivar choice, and whole-plant efficacy

3. NHS and MHRA-backed clinical trials on full-spectrum and home-grown cannabis

4. Equitable access regardless of income—no more two-tiered systems where only the wealthy have full medical rights

5. Training and protection for prescribers so that care is based on need, not fear

6. A transition away from international cannabis shipping, which is inefficient, unethical, and incompatible with botanical medicine standards

If this is truly about evidence, let us gather it.

If this is about health, let us heal.

If this is about compassion, then let us grow.