The mother of a boy with severe epilepsy has called for a meeting with British Home Secretary Sajid Javid and Secretary of State for Health Jeremy Hunt to talk about making medical cannabis legal for children who have similar conditions to her son.
Charlotte Caldwell said it was “absolutely horrific” and “cruel” that her 12-year-old son, Billy, had been refused cannabis oil after British Home Office officials confiscated a six-month supply.
She added that his condition was now beginning to improve after being allowed to have some of the treatment on license on Saturday.
“This experience, that myself and my little boy have endured in this last week, I do not want, and I will not stand by and let, any other family in our country endure,” she told BBC Breakfast.
“It’s absolutely horrific, it’s cruel,” she said.
“I’m asking Sajid now. I’m in London, I can assure him I’m not going anywhere, until this is now put in place and this medicine is made accessible to all the other children that desperately need it,” she told the BBC show.
Billy Caldwell, from Northern Ireland, began using cannabis oil, which contains a substance called tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), in 2016 to control his seizures.
Charlotte Caldwell says the oil had kept her son seizure-free for more than 300 days.
He became the first person in the UK with a prescription for cannabis oil when it was recommended to him by a local doctor in Northern Ireland, but the doctor stopped prescribing cannabis oil after being warned by the Home Office.
THC is illegal in the UK, but available elsewhere.
Billy Caldwell’s most recent supply, which came from Canada, was confiscated when he and his mother arrived at Heathrow airport from Toronto on Monday.
After he suffered hundreds of “life-threatening” seizures without access to his supply, Javid issued a special license to provide the youngster with treatment.
Javid said that the British government’s immediate priority was to make sure the youngster receives “the most effective treatment possible in a safe way.”
However, the oil was administered under a 20-day license and is not allowed to be taken home, officials said.
A spokeswoman for the Home Office said it was an “exceptional license” for a “short-term emergency” and it would need to be reviewed.
Additional reporting by AP
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