A CANNABIS campaigner and a prescribing GP have warned that the Island’s legal system has failed to keep pace with the realities of medicinal cannabis.
Simon Harrison, co-ordinator of End Cannabis Prohibition Jersey, said it was “quite simply horrifying” that a one-year-old child was almost permanently removed from his birth parents after a UK parenting assessment collapsed over their lawful cannabis use.
Mr Harrison wrote to the government following this newspaper’s front-page report on the Royal Court judgment, which halted a bid to free the child for adoption and criticised the handling of alternative options.
Carpathia Clinic medical director Dr Kirstie Ross said the case highlighted a fundamental gap between modern medicine and Island regulation.
“The stigma that persists – and which isn’t extended to opiates or benzodiazepines despite their known risks – must be challenged if treatment is to be open and safe,” she said.
Dr Ross said that while she could not comment on the individual case, Jersey lacked the basic regulatory framework needed to support informed safeguarding decisions.
“As a general rule, any prescribed medication should be provided within strict safety regulations,” she said. “We have no such island regulations, despite repeated attempts to engage government.”
She described a tightly controlled prescribing process in her own practice, involving lengthy initial consultations, checks with a patient’s GP and frequent reviews before treatment is stabilised.
“This is not casual prescribing,” she said, adding that some conditions – including psychotic disorders and bipolar disease – were absolute contraindications for cannabis treatment.
Dr Ross said the absence of clear rules meant family law and safeguarding systems were operating in a vacuum.
“The family law and safeguarding legislation is unlikely to have been updated because there are no formal rules governing the medicinal cannabis industry for them to reference,” she said.
Mr Harrison said the consequences of that gap had been laid bare by the case.
“The implication that a child could be removed from parents because of legal medical treatment would likely cause great concern amongst the patient community,” he said.
At the heart of the case was the parents’ use of prescribed medicinal cannabis, taken under medical supervision for physical and mental health conditions.
A UK residential parenting assessment was terminated shortly after it began due to concerns over that treatment.
Mr Harrison said that decision should never have been allowed to stand unchallenged.
“The judgment reports that the UK parenting assessment centre terminated the placement of the parents due to their prescribed medicinal cannabis use,” he wrote. “However, medicinal cannabis use is protected in the UK under the Equality Act 2010.”
He said the law was clear that discrimination on the grounds of disability – including conditions treated with prescribed cannabis – was unlawful, and that organisations providing services or accommodation were required to make reasonable adjustments.
“This includes allowing the use of prescribed medical cannabis where it is consumed responsibly and safely, as per the patient’s prescription,” he said.
The Royal Court also criticised the way medicinal cannabis was presented to potential assessment centres, noting that alternative methods of consumption were not properly explained. Mr Harrison said this omission compounded discrimination and fuelled unnecessary fear.
He urged decision-makers to ensure that any future UK assessment placement fully reflects the legal protections around prescribed cannabis.
“I sincerely hope that consideration will be given to this aspect of UK law in the finding of a new assessment centre placement for the parents,” he wrote, adding that it is “against UK law for any such centre to refuse accommodations”.
