GW Pharmaceuticals awarded innovations prize

The British cannabis pharmaceutical company is taking home an award that shows how important cannabis has been to the UK economy for over 20 years - but also how much it has been reserved as an industry and as a drug for the elite Here's the amazing part of that story. GW Pharmaceuticals has just been awarded a so-called "Queen's Prize for Innovation". The company, which is one of the oldest medical cannabis companies on the planet, wasn't licensed to operate (in the UK) until the turn of the century. For a long time it was the only viable (legal) cannabis company in the country. It came about in a pretty unique way. Rather than competing with other well-funded competitors in an auction in any state while messing with the DEA or buying up a patient population or two in Canada, the process was a little easier. The founders, Cambridge alumni, got a license from the Home Office. For most of its existence, however, the company did not produce for domestic consumption, but for export. In fact, GW Pharma has sold its products worldwide, making the UK the country that has exported the most medicinal cannabis to the world over the past decade (even ahead of the Netherlands and Canada). This is actually nothing new in the UK treatment of cannabis. The British East India Company even monopolized the flow of both tea and cannabis between China and India at one point. Beyond historical revisionism, there is much that makes GW Pharma commendable - if not such lofty recognition. The company's medicinal products are whole-plant and work on-label - for the relief of symptoms of MS and epilepsy. Off-label, Sativex works well for chronic pain, as well as other conditions that use THC drugs (from Crohn's disease to PTSD). Regardless of the groundbreaking nature of their products, if not the admission of the diplomatic face of the British people that cannabis has great potency as a medicine, the politics behind it all still smell a little damp. If there has ever been a country where reforms have benefited the few when it comes to cannabis, Britain’s support for GW Pharmaceuticals while banning everyone else, if not further reform, is the showcase for it . Namely, at a time when the company was making profits from overseas sales (which also went straight into the bank account of the former Prime Minister's husband), the vast majority of UK patients suffered - either without medication or in fear of prosecution. In addition, there are other forces at play that are far more politically than scientifically motivated - and always have been. The UK is in the process of formalizing its use of CBD, but the medical discussion has been put on the back burner so far. Because even if the NHS now technically allows cannabis patients to source GW Pharmaceuticals products domestically, it's still incredibly difficult to get them. Additionally, UK regulators (NICE) have banned the use of cannabinoids for chronic pain (the number one symptom for which cannabis is prescribed in Germany and for which it is most commonly used in places like Canada and the United States). For all the trumpeting of the superiority of the UK science-based business, there is still a lot of ground on the table. For starters, UK patients actually need to register for ID so they don't get arrested or their medical cannabis confiscated. And many patients and their families still have to import other types of cannabinoid drugs when GW Pharma's products don't work - or don't work as well as other alternatives.