Medical Marijuana Should Have Access to It
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+ Cannabis is a wonder substance that can help the sick and make investors very rich Which is why more and more countries are legalising it, but not the UK – yet. Tibbs Jenkins reports on those who are championing the plant with huge potential TATLER SEPTEMBER 2017 TATLER.COM 09-17WELL-Marijuana - 4pp.indd 142 28/06/2017 13:42 ‘This is going to be a game changer,’ he says. ‘Particularly when it comes to the nature of the debate. People cannot say it has no medical value when our number-one medical college in the UK has an institute dedicated to researching it.’ It’s not just Oxford’s research that excites Sathianathan. Forma Holdings, also co- founded with KCP and established in 2016, takes an international view of the cannabis market, with offices in London and LA, and has three main divisions: retail and cultivation; pharmaceutical and life sciences; and = £ £ investments in ambitious entrepreneurs who are shaping the cannabis industry. Many of these pioneers are focusing, for instance, on edibles – such as gummies, mints, chocs and the like, all of them branded to appeal to aficionados. Such products are very much a growth area in the US, believed to account for about half the money brought in by this exploding industry. Sathianathan was £ previously the MD of Tesco’s Blinkbox Books, part of its digital-entertainment business, as well as having been at Facebook early on. But in 2014 he stumbled across a piece of research by John Quelch, a professor at Harvard Business School, about the skyrocketing recreational-marijuana market in Colorado. ‘I just thought it was interesting,’ he says. t would be a rare Sloane who – a substance that brings joy and relief, and is Interesting? It was a eureka moment, didn’t have an ex-hippie aunt entirely legal for medical use in 29 states in the and it inspired Sathianathan to track down all too ready to reminisce US, not to mention in Canada, Uruguay, Quelch, who told him that ‘this is going about the hazy times she Israel, Germany and many other nations. (Its to be the biggest business opportunity since spent in a hash den in Kabul. recreational use is also legal in eight US states.) the birth of the net’. Sathianathan subsequently And it would be an even Some are so confident of its qualities and its went to Colorado for three months to network rarer Sloane who has never eventual, inevitable legalisation in the UK that and figure it all out, taking his family with clasped a spliff between their they’re putting their money behind it. Take him. And while he was busy hobnobbing, he lips. But it would be a very Kingsley Capital Partners, a British private- says, ‘my wife, who doesn’t know the first unusual (and perhaps rather equity and venture-capital firm that began thing about cannabis, would go to cannabis slow) City-based Sloane who investing in the emerging legalised-cannabis dispensaries with her friends – you know, Ihad not begun to examine market in 2015 and is the only firm outside middle-class women who live in London and the investment possibilities the US to be doing so on a formal basis. How were visiting us – and she’d say to me, “This of cannabis. Consider these figures: the already- much KCP have invested is, at the time of is just like going to a Kate Spade shop or a legalised trade in many parts of the US may, writing, under wraps, but their actions speak beauty parlour.”’ according to some projections, be worth as loudly: at the beginning of this year, they That sold him on the industry, and after much as $25bn (£20bn) by 2020. (The US’s founded Oxford Cannabinoid Technologies 10 years of being a techie he is now completely illegal cannabis market is currently valued at (OCT) in partnership with Oxford University focused on marijuana. As he says: ‘Twenty around $41bn). Dutch tax revenues from to study the properties of cannabinoids and years ago in Europe, we missed the birth of the legalised cannabis are estimated at £300m bring cannabinoid-derived medication to the web industry.’ And he doesn’t want to be left a year. And a 2016 report by the Adam Smith market – a first for the university. Even Sir behind this time. He gathered some former Institute claimed that the illicit UK market Patrick Stewart, head Trekkie, has endorsed colleagues and friends, raised money, bought was worth £6.8bn a year, which, if legalised, the research, having used cannabinoid-based a licence for a medical dispensary in Las Vegas could bring in as much as £1bn in medication legally for the past two years to and invested in five companies that were active taxes to the Treasury – and could, as the alleviate the pain of his arthritis. ‘This is,’ he in the US cannabis market. But that’s business Lib Dems recently proposed, be spent said, ‘an important step forward for Britain – his main concern is that those in need of on education. Prosecuting and imprisoning in a field of research too long held back by medical marijuana should have access to it. So cannabis offenders costs British taxpayers prejudice, fear and ignorance.’ last year he funded End Our Pain, a medically millions a year, and according to research Another big supporter of the research is focused non-profit campaign. conducted by the Lib Dems, around a million Gavin Sathianathan, CEO of Forma Holdings, Because what is perhaps more important hours of police time a year is ‘wasted a company that builds businesses in markets than the money that might be made from enforcing cannabis prohibition’. Yes, cannabis where the medical use of cannabis is legal. cannabis is the claim that the drug can be ] TATLER.COM TATLER SEPTEMBER 2017 09-17WELL-Marijuana - 4pp.indd 127 12/07/2017 09:05 [used to help relieve many chronic medical Some believe that marijuana can help Road (an online black market, largely in conditions – a claim backed by scientists, with glaucoma, irritable-bowel syndrome drugs). Being able to buy online is key. Had academics and businessmen in the UK. (IBS), chronic pain, post-traumatic stress the pain worsened, she tells me, she would disorder, sickle-cell anaemia, Tourette’s, MS have considered uprooting her entire family ohn Lycett Green, for instance, is very and Crohn’s disease. What many people don’t and moving to the US. Jvocal on the matter and supports realise is that with medical marijuana you But technical glitches with online buying Cannabis Is Safer Than Alcohol don’t get high in the process. The buzz (plus mean that supplies can be held up for two (CISTA), a political party founded in 2015 the munchies) that you get from recreational days or more, which is serious if you are that advocates the drug’s legalisation. He has weed comes from tetrahydrocannabinol treating, say, the symptoms of your MS. And, also spoken about his mother, the writer (THC). Those eager to get stoned usually as Feilding points out, the quality of cannabis Candida Lycett Green, who lost her battle want a variety high in THC, and it is these purchased online is questionable because with pancreatic cancer in 2014. The Prince more powerful varieties that can be very there is no regulation. ‘It puts a terrible of Wales’s great friend had, however, been dangerous and damaging, particularly when burden of uncertainty on patients,’ she says. able to lessen the terrible pain of her illness by overused – there’s much talk of mental illness It also turns those who use such websites, ingesting butter enriched with cannabidiol caused by skunk. There are, however, other even for this most benign of reasons, into (CBD). The CBD allowed her to eat without varieties that contain only a small level of criminals – which is why they insist on being in agony, to sleep at night and even THC but are rich in CBD. And it is the remaining anonymous. to ride again. ‘She firmly believed,’ says John, CBD-rich cannabis that provides the unique Like the equestrian who suffered a life- ‘that cannabidiol had helped her and that, medical benefits. You don’t even have to altering riding accident and now regularly with more research, it could help lessen the smoke it – you can vape it, take it in capsule uses a medical-marijuana spray to lessen suffering of other people with cancer.’ form, use it as ointment, drink it, eat it or the pain, though she is also quite happy to have That chimes with the views of Edouard even take it as a suppository. Dosage does need a ‘couple of tokes on a spliff’ now and then as a Desforges, who campaigned to be watching, though. The late drug smuggler/ ‘temporary distraction’. Like the ex-Benenden CISTA’s candidate for the London mayoral writer Howard Marks suffered from bowel Somerset dweller whose arthritis causes election last year. A contributor to the cancer and swallowed three weeks’ worth her ‘savage pain’, eased by ‘six to 10 spliffs MedicalMarijuana.co.uk website – Britain’s of cannabis oil in one night. He went a day, and thank goodness for it’. And largest online resource for information temporarily mad, thought he was a chicken the pregnant Notting Hill-based yogi who about medical marijuana, featuring legal (according to some) and had to be sectioned. uses CBD in capsule form to help with ‘CANNABIDIOL ALLOWED CANDIDA LYCETT GREEN TO EAT WITHOUT BEING IN AGONY, TO SLEEP AT NIGHT AND TO RIDE AGAIN’ advice, recipes, products, news and patients’ Fans say that medical marijuana, if used morning sickness.