Cannabis scheduling review: part 1
The therapeutic and medicinal benefits of cannabis-based products – a review of recent evidence.
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Professor Dame Sally Davies, Chief Medical Officer for England and Chief Medical Adviser to the UK government, has reviewed evidence for the therapeutic benefit of cannabis-based medicinal products.
The review summarises the results of recent reviews and discusses the quality of evidence. Professor Davies concludes that cannabis-based medicinal products should be moved out of a Schedule 1 classification. Schedule 1 drugs by definition have little or no therapeutic potential.
This review forms part of a series of measures announced by the Home Secretary on 19 June 2018 looking at the scheduling of cannabis. Its conclusion signals the start of a second review, which will be led by the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD).
The ACMD will not reassess the evidence issued by Professor Dame Sally Davies but will provide an assessment, based on the balance of harms and public health needs, of what (if anything) should be rescheduled.