Who do you want to ask to do your meds . Theres one major difference in the dingley household, though. What about annie doing them, why doesnt annie do them . Good boy, well done. Alfie is taking his Epilepsy Medicine and he really needs it. His neurologist said he has the worst epilepsy hes ever seen. He would have about 150 of these big seizures. So its arms, legs, eyes going back in your head, you stop breathing. I got up very early in the morning and sat with him, and looked out the window and i held his hand, and i thought about what his funeral might be like, because i thought he was going to die. They brought us into a room and said, weve tried everything and were going to. The last thing were going to give him is intravenous steroids and, if this doesnt work, he will probably die. Alfie and his family have come a long way in the last decade, thanks to a different kind of medicine. So, i give alfie his cannabis oil four times a day. So it comes in a 10ml bottle of oil. Draw the oil out into the syringe, and then we get it into him before he goes to school. Thank you alfies family get his cannabis on the nhs. He was the very first child in the country to be given it. Without the cannabis, wed be in hospital in a few days, with hundreds of seizures, needing to load him with Rescue Medications to stop his seizures. And it is terrifying. Alfie hasnt had a seizure for over three years, so alfie hasnt been in hospital for over four years. He was costing the nhs anything between £150,000 and £200,000 a year, and hes not now. Many people watching this will think youre giving your child something that will get him high, that we know can induce psychosis. What do you say to that . I would say that thats a massive lack of education, because my son has been high on anti epileptics, hes been completely off his head on pharmaceutical drugs. Hes never been high on cannabis. So, im dr david mccormick, i| am a consultant paediatrician, and were in Kings College hospital, london. And you can prescribe cannabis . I can prescribe one cannabis derived medical product to treat epilepsy in children. Davids talking about a medicine with cbd in it. Its approved or licensed for use in the uk. It can only be prescribed on the nhs for very specific conditions. Many Health Problems like alfies arent on the list, but the public were told he could now prescribe the whole cannabis plant, which hasnt been given a licence. It has thc in it, the stuff that can make you high. This is what campaigners say works for a wide range of conditions. But theres a problem. Its legalised, but its not freely available. For me to prescribe. So, this is complicated. The licensed products have gone through a safety regulation process. We know exactly whats in them and we know how much to give. And the unlicensed products . The Unlicensed Productsl could have a whole range of substances in them. So, we literally dont know what people are getting. L and its this version of cannabis, the whole plant, thats almost impossible to get on the nhs. The message went out,. Doctors can now prescribe cannabis derived. Medicinal products. As doctors, that put us in a difficult position, i because, in truth, we need to apply for cannabis to be | approved by nhs england. The issue is, whole plant cannabis isnt on any hospitals list of approved medicines. I would like to see better| evidence for their efficacy and safety. So, at this time, i dont quite feel the evidencel for me is there. When consultants want to prescribe it, they have to ask the nhs to make an exception, and theyre almost always turned down. It does mean we find ourselves in a strange situation right now, in the sense that these products are not available i within our much loved nhs, free at the point of need. I so it seems alfies prescribed cannabis is an exception, and we want to know why. There are a small number of children who were approved for individual supply. We therefore have an inequity that a handful of children are getting these whole plant products and theyre supplied by the nhs and, when we apply for funding for others, that is declined. The government told us any decision to prescribe medical cannabis is made by an independent panel of experts. It says, if funding isnt approved, it cant intervene. Well, women are shy, so were not used to showing our bodies. Who am i . Ok, im amanda lowe. Im originally from bermuda. Im a reggae singer songwriter. Im also a Breast Cancer survivor. Amanda is another cannabis user. She gets the drug not through the nhs, but via a private clinic. Shes currently taking part in a modelling competition, but to get through a day like this, amanda has to take her meds. She vapes cannabis. It comes in a canister. Take the cap off. So, because im allowed ig a day, i put that on my scale first. And then, once its measured out, i take it and i grind it up. Once thats done, then i have to heat up, and then i vape it. Amandas private prescription is completely legal. A clinic provides it for chronic pain, after she had a life changing diagnosis. So, im laying in bed, and then i felt something here on my breast. Im like, oh, really . Then i got the call from my doctor and told me to come in. And thats when she told me. Youve got Breast Cancer. How many operations did you have . In total, were looking at 14. They removed my breast, but i made the decision to use my own fat up in my chest. When you wake up from such a massive surgery, youre so dosed with pain medication. Once it wore off, i basically screamed down that hospital. Amanda has been living with chronic pain for nearly ten years. She says cannabis is the only drug that works for her. It doesnt matter what im doing. Just literally feels like somebody has taken their fist and just literally just punched the side of my chest in. My whole body is tense, theres absolutely nothing that ican do. But once i vape, its like 30 seconds, im like, ohh prof david nutt knows a thing or two about cannabis. Hes a neuropharmapsychologist. Cannabis has been legal for medical use since 2018. We now need to look more closely at the use of cannabis based medicines in the Health Care Sector in the uk. It was almost as if they gave it with one hand and took iti away with the other. Unfortunately, by constraining the prescriptions to consultants, that made it almost unavailable. To the people that really need it, the people who are in primary care. Gps cant use it. Fewer than five nhs patients have been prescribed whole plant cannabis in the last five years. I think its outrageous. I think its actually a scandal that so little has happened i in the nhs. Most doctors will not l prescribe any medicine until two things happen. The first is that a drug company does a trial and tells them that they can prescribe it because theyve got a licence. | and the second is that nice, our National Institute that i guides prescribing, says its cost effective. And with medical cannabis, | neither of those things have happened. The private sector have embraced this because they have seen the value. We know over a Million People a day in the uki are using medical cannabis, but almost all of them are getting it from the illegal market, and that has major. Problems. They dont exactly know what theyre getting and theyre breaking the law. So its not surprising that some of them want to go and get it prescribed in the private sector. Good to meet you. Thank you so much for today. Thank you. As prof nutt went on his travels, so did we. You see lemon groves, you see oranges, avocados are a big fruit that theyre growing. Is avocado a fruit . Yeah. Because you see all of that here, the last thing you expect to see is cannabis. Were off to see where some of the uks medical cannabis comes from. This is our medical cannabis farm. Youve come on a nice day. Sunshine is very| important to us. Plants run on sunlightl and weve got lots of it here in the south of portugal. Euan used to grow fruit in the uk, but hes swapped berries for buds. My history was growing i strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, cut flowers. In 2017, i could see that legislation was going to change and that medical cannabis. Was going to become a thing of the future. Im a grower and i guessj a bit of an entrepreneur, so i thought, why not . Lets have a go. This is where the magic happens. So, this is what 1,000 i cannabis plants look like. These batches here are grown for the clinics in the uk. This is the first time journalists have been given access to this facility. This is the blend between farming and pharma. So we say pharming with a ph. Every plant has a bar code, and we record the history. Of every plant, so we know where it is in the facility and what the history of that plant is. Were producing somethingj thats going to go to people who are medically ill. So we must make sure. That we grow very uniform crops, very consistent crops and very safe crops. This is really the best, really the best one that we have. So, today we are harvesting. Its basically cutting out the plants, put them in the boxes. This year, the farm will produce two tonnes of medical cannabis. In five years, thats predicted to be 20 tonnes. They are my babies. I come here in weekends to check on them. They are absolutely my babies. But, of course, this is big business. In 2019, the uks medical cannabis industry was worth less than £160,000. By next year, its expected to be worth a billion. I do have some concerns. About that private industry, mostly because i dont know| what these products contain, how much my patients are getting, and what effects that might have on them in the long term. Were not in this for a fast buck, so we need to keep the patient in the forefront of everything that we do, and thats where our success will come. At the end of the day, the more patients are helped, the more doctors will prescribe and the more successful our business will be. Then i press this. So this is the Cannabis Flower and this is where all the goodness is. We just cut it off the stem. Its now going to go through our trimming machine, where these leaves will be shaved off the side. This is now packed up and sent to private patients. But none of this crop, not a single flower, will be available on the nhs. Ive seen the stigma surrounding cannabis reduce massively, so thats reallyi good, but im disappointed that the pace of change hasnt been faster. Yes, we would love it to be available on the nhs. I was diagnosed with tourette� s when i was 13. A lot of it was farmyard animal noises, banging, barking, a very shrill noise like almost like the noise a fire alarm makes when its out of battery. Conor is a customer of this booming market. It builds up over time. Winking, blinking, rolling my shoulder. This is the one that often gives me a lot of pain. Sorry, my anxiety� s starting to build up again. Over the years, hes tried lots of different prescription drugs. Every medication that theyve been able to give me, some of them sort of work but they made me into basically a zombie. According to the latest figures, conor� s private prescription is one of more than 140,000 handed out since medical cannabis became legal. I use a medicinal vaporiser. I grind up the flower and it blows really hot air through it into a bag, and then ijust take it through the bag. He says hes had no choice but to go private. I spoke to my doctor and he said that he didnt want to refer me, so i went and referred myself. I went and looked at the clinics. Its about £300 a month. We skimp and save where we can in order to be able to afford it, basically. We are going through our savings. Im hoping that soon, ill be able to work and maybe be able to manage it, because thats the only way if it doesnt become available on the nhs. Does it make you high . Initially, it made me very high but after a few days of taking it, its a mild buzz at most. Tourette� s its something i dreamed of as a kid, you know, taking a small pill and it would just disappear and now, i have it, basically. Sings. Music is me, its like a second breath in me, and for me to be in a studio again oh, mercy. After her catwalk debut, amanda is home in hampshire, working on her reggae album. It took me through a lot, especially when i was going through my trials and tribulations with my mastectomy and all the pain. But today is another one of those days. She has a severe pain attack. Oh, mercy. Groans. This is the part where i dont want to deal. This is the part where ive had enough because itjust. The pain comes from nerves damaged after 14 cancer operations. This is the pain that puts me down on bended knees. To be riddled continuously, its like, mm mm, ijust dont want to be here no more. Take this last one. I walk in pain 24 7 but because i have this medicine now, i can vape it and to know that within a couple of minutes, a couple of seconds, my bodys feeling much better. Amanda gets her cannabis from a private prescriber but that wasnt always the case she was one of millions getting the drug from the streets. On the streets, it would be, for 7g, itd be like £55, £60. It was expensive but then, that would last like two weeks and then, ive got to try to find some way to get some more money. Its a familiar story. Its estimated that 1. 8 million Medicinal Cannabis users get the drug illegally. But amandas private prescription still comes at a price. What im left with after i pay my rent and my bills, thats basically everything. So, youre sort of choosing between food and weed sometimes . Definitely, because i need my medication but i also need food. And itjust come on now. Come on. You need to put this onto the prescription. It will make a world of a difference. It will make my life much easier to live. What i think about is the fact. That there could be something that could help this go away a plant that could stop all this, that were not allowed to use. The 27th of may, 2012 i never forget the day. I i was woken at midnight by him screaming and i ran in to him i and he had a massive seizure. We were just thrown into this world that i didnt know existed, and it was really frightening. I the years of alfies relentless seizures took their toll on the whole family. My counsellor said, you have ptsd, so ive done a lot of work to try and get better because i want to enjoy my children. Hannah decided she had to take matters into her own hands and fight. And at that point, ijust thought, ok, i need to start trusting me. And all i did is i went onto google and ijust started researching natural ways of treating epilepsy. One drug kept coming up again and again. Ithought, well, cannabis is a drug ofjoy and fun and everyone takes it when they want to get stoned and eat biscuits. I had to do a lot of research and speak to a lot of families all over the world which i did and then, i realised that it was a medicine. Hannah started a high Profile Campaign for cannabis to be legally available. We did loads of media really, really went for it in the media, broadcast radio, newspapers. I met the Prime Minister on the 20th of march. It ended with a meeting with theresa may, who allowed us to apply for this licence and we got that licence in june � 18. Alfie picks up his cannabis prescription from the family doctor, who dispenses it under direction from a consultant. Hello. Hello there hello. Shall we shake hands . Good man. Its very nice to see you. Its nice to see you. How many bottles do you want of that . I3. Its an odd number, isnt it . 13. The thing to me was doing the right thing for alfie,. And id seen the effect on alfie and, more l importantly, his family. Frankly, ijust wanted to do anything that i could do to improve it. You ready . Under the tongue. Ifelt id changed history. And i felt my sons legacy was that millions of people would get access now to the treatment that he had, which was a wonderful feeling. But her sense of achievement didnt last long. I think they changed the law to take the wind out of my sails because i was a very effective campaigner. The campaign was very effective. All its done is blocked it because all the parents now trying to get access for their children with epilepsy are blocked at every turn. And that broke my heart, actually, and that was sort of the beginning of when i realised that, actually, people werent going to get access on the nhs. So, why is alfie getting cannabis on the nhs . Because we ran a high Profile Campaign and we were the first. The Department Of Health and social care told us . Adding five years after legalisation, here we are. Only a handful like alfie are getting cannabis on the nhs. Im contacted probably every day by parents who are desperate, who could get real benefit from this medicine, and they cant get it. And thats really incredibly sad. Cannabis is still a drug that divides opinion. So, i think theres been this perception that its some wonder drug or, you know, magic bullet for these conditions. I think we need to be clear that these products are not going to help all children, theyre going to help some children, but it is frustrating for those families that they dont at least have the chance to try them. Were onlyjust touching the very, very surface. Of the power of cannabis. As patients struggle to access cannabis on the nhs, the private sector continues to grow. Where i hope this industryj is going to be in ten years time is that youll be able to stand there and ill be able to say that this row is a strain for bowel cancer, that row is a strain for epilepsy. But weve got a lot of work to do as an industry to get| to that point. The current landscape is certainly confusing. It was unhelpful that the public were told that doctors can now prescribe these products. I did feel it was disingenuous at the time because it shifted the heat from the government to practitioners like myself. Parents were clamouring at our door because they believed we were now in a position to prescribe, and that was not the case. For some reason, cannabis is treated much more cynically than the other medicines. Probably my belief is its because its come from the patients. I think doctors dont like the fact that patients have worked out that theres a medicine that can help them and theyre asking the doctors to prescribe it. Hannahs campaign for access to that most controversial of plants continues. I find it shocking that the government have literally just washed their hands of this problem. Weve got the law changed. Weve changed things. The doctors and the government have to move it forward and have to take it forward and i hope, in the next five years, id just see it being prescribed on the nhs. That would give me so much pleasure. Hello. Its been a warm first few days of october, following on from the record breaking september. Well, joint record, as you can see, for maximum temperatures that was tied with the record set in 1895. Now, all that heat and humidity has triggered some thunderstorms during the latter part of monday. They have continued through the night. Lots of excess rain, standing water, slow to clear away. As well as that, this Weather Front here as well, just lingering in southeastern parts first thing. So a bit misty and a bit grey, showers following towards the north. This is the Weather System i talked about, the rain starting to ease but leaving lots of damp, misty, murky weather and then potentially some thunderstorms following in the wake of that Weather Front. Certainly a fresh night and a cool night to end in the north but it will still be quite muggy in the south with that lingering misty, low cloud. And damp weather, perhaps a few thundery showers across southern areas first thing. In terms of dry weather improving, bright, more blue sky around but scattered showers most frequent in the north and the west for the day. And a brisk wind whisking the showers through. 14 19 our highs. It will be notably cooler feeling or fresher feeling across england and wales because of the breeze and also weve lost the humidity. Now, by wednesday we have High Pressure starting to build towards the south. Further Weather Fronts invading northern parts, particularly scotland and then Northern Ireland and then that Weather Front might well become slow moving across parts of southern scotland, northern england. So there are warnings out appropriately for the end of the week. To the south, mainly dry and fine but quite a bit of cloud around, showers follow to the north. Look at those temperatures. Still around about 14 19, Just A Little Bit still above average actually for the time of year. We keep our Weather Front with us through wednesday night into thursday, probably pushing northwards once again, another pulse of rain on that Weather System. There are warnings out for the rainfall in northern and western part of the uk for the latter part of the week. But for many parts further south, it is dry, it is fine and it will get warmer. In fact, we are hinting, the Computer Models are hinting at temperatures getting into the low to mid 20s across many parts as we go into the weekend. The warnings are on the website. Live from washington, this is bbc news. Donald trump appears in court at the start of his fraud trial in new york. The former president calls the case a scam. Florida congressman matt gaetz files a motion to remove the us House Speaker from his job. Well speak to a republican lawmaker about Kevin Mccarthys fate. And a bbc investigation finds the former boss of the fashion brand, abercrombie fitch, faces claims of exploitation, by men recruited to have sex at events he hosted. Im sumi somaskanda. Thank you forjoining us. We begin with former president Donald Trumps first day in court in new york, for a fraud trial that could threaten his business empire. Mr trump and his company are accused of committing rampant fraud, by inflating the value of his real estate empire. Mrtrump, who has denied all wrongdoing, was on the defensive even before the trial began. We have a great company, i built a great company, its got tremendous value, its got some of the greatest real estate assets in the world, and now i have to go before a roguejudge, is a continuation of russia, russia, russia, as a continuation of the greatest witchhunt of all time, and i dont think the people of this country are going to stand for it
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