JERSEY needs to be “very careful” of the high number of Islanders who are being prescribed medicinal cannabis, according to a senior doctor who is part of a board which advises the Heath department has warned.
Baroness Dame Clare Gerada, who is a non-executive director of the Health and Care Jersey Advisory Board, raised her concerns at the board’s recent quarterly meeting.
Prescribed medicinal cannabis is legal in Jersey but concerns about a lack of regulation have been raised multiple times, including by Health Minister Tom Binet.
There seems to be a growing consensus that in its enthusiasm to legalise medicinal cannabis, which started in January 2019, the Island failed to put adequate controls in place.
What has emerged is a high number of Islanders being prescribed the drug – figures from 2022 finding that 6.08% of the Jersey working population receiving a prescription versus 0.05% in the UK – and a buoyant secondary market, whereby people with a legal prescription sell their surplus on illegally to others.
Baroness Gerada said: “There appears to be massive cannabis prescribing in Jersey, which will have an impact on mental health provision.
“The Island needs to be very careful because this is not a zero-risk issue. We know from lots of studies that if you’re genetically predisposed, taking cannabis increases your risk significantly of getting schizophrenia. This is not a little risk; this is significant.
“The Island needs to be mindful that this high-risk group has the potential to increase.”
The senior medical practitioner’s warning is not an unfamiliar message.
Last year, Health Minister Tom Binet told a Scrutiny Panel: “What happened in Jersey is that we were swift to legalise medicinal cannabis without making sure that we had done all the homework to regulate it properly. We are possibly suffering as a consequence.”
At the same hearing, mental health lead Andy Weir said: “I am not sure we would go so far as to say ‘mental health crisis’ but certainly we are seeing a significant increase in people that are requiring admission acutely, for example, to Orchard Ward, who have been using large amounts of prescribed cannabis prior to that admission.
“There are still a number of concerns shared both within health services and within primary care about the prescribing of cannabis to people with known serious mental illness. Both the volume of cannabis that is being prescribed and also some of the nature of the prescribing creates a significant concern for us.”
Deputy Binet has commissioned a review of all medicines’ regulation in Jersey, which includes the production of cannabis in the Island. Work is also being undertaken on the use of recreational cannabis.
However, this weekend’s election and subsequent formation of a new Council of Ministers is likely to delay publication and debate of these reviews to the end of this year or into next.
