An Open Letter from the Cannabis Industry Council on Medicinal Cannabis, Media Cycles and Patient Access
Every few months, medical cannabis becomes a headline again in mainstream media outlets.
The language is familiar, the framing is predictable and the reactions of anger, defensiveness and division follows just as reliably.
Whilst we are directly challenging the false assertions head on with the publication that recently published an article on medical cannabis prescriptions in the UK, as an industry we should also acknowledge some hard truths. Outrage fuels attention, attention fuels clicks, and clicks fuel repetition. The more heated the response, the more incentive there is to do it again. This is by design.
Yes, these types of stories strike a nerve with industry professionals, clinicians and patients, but not the one some imagine. They don’t change the prescribing law here in the UK. They don’t undo the clinical need that underpins medical cannabis in the UK. Patients will continue to receive the care and treatment they need regardless of weekend headlines published in mainstream media.
What these types of stories do risk, though, is keeping us divided over the small things, when unity is needed more than ever. Some may argue these kinds of battles aren’t worth fighting, that the public will move onto the next outrage in a few days, and this too will be forgotten. And they’re partly right, it will be forgotten. But forgetting is how stigma thrives.
If we never challenge misconceptions or misrepresentations, or if we never explain the reality or re-educate those who only know the negative narratives associated with the cannabis plant, then nothing changes. At the same time, we have to be careful not to turn patient healthcare access into a polarising public debate that ultimately benefits no one except advertisers. The truth sits somewhere in the middle of all this.
Medical cannabis in the UK is tightly regulated, patient numbers remain small (but are growing day by day), and prescriptions are available to people who have often exhausted every other option available to them. None of this is radical, but it’s continuously misunderstood.
Perhaps change doesn’t come from outrage alone, nor from silence. Perhaps it comes from persistent visibility. We as an industry all want the same thing: to make sure the facts are made available and easily accessible. The fact is that medical cannabis is not a cultural statement or a lifestyle trend. It is a valid treatment option for patients, and for many, it represents the difference between functioning and not. When these types of headlines fade, patients are still there. And they deserve better than being reduced to a clickbait line in someone else’s news cycle.
