The border guards who seized the cannabis oil “put the life of my five-year-old at risk.”
Material medicine confiscated in Stansteda treats seizures and panic attacks caused by the form of epilepsy, says the mother
A five-year-old girl with severe epilepsy risks “unnecessary death,” her mother said, after border guards confiscated her shipment of medical cannabis oils at Stansted Airport.
Indy-Rose Clarry, who has had severe seizures and panic attacks before using the drug for the past 14 months, said her mother, Tannine Montgomery.
However, Montgomery was stopped by border guards on Friday after returning from the Netherlands, although she had a personal prescription for a medicine written by her British doctor.
“Seizing this medicine condemns my beloved daughter to coma, seizures and a high risk of unnecessary death,” Montgomery said. “For the love of God, this medicine is legal in the UK, and I have a full legal prescription in the UK.
This month, a parliamentary health committee ordered the Home Office to stop confiscating cannabis from parents of sick children. Despite the fact that last year the government announced that doctors could prescribe a medical cannabis containing the psychoactive ingredient THC, campaigners said that so far only two NHS prescriptions have been issued.
Montgomery of Suffolk said that although she had a private prescription in the UK, it was much cheaper to go to the Netherlands to stock up on oils. Yesterday, she called on Health Minister Matt Hancock to “deal with the crisis”.
Montgomery, 30, said that although she had been illegally importing such drugs without a licence, British border officials had previously allowed her to enter the country with drugs. ” To obtain a special import licence would cost us £4,500 per month as opposed to the £1,500 we pay for the drug at the moment,” she said.
Montgomery added that Hancock needs to intervene to stop the suffering of families. “Every day that it doesn’t work, it’s a day of endless suffering for mothers like me.
” For families like us it’s too much to bear the frustration of knowing that there’s something that can transform the lives of our children but we are blocked from getting it,” she said. Former Interior Minister Sajid Javid announced in 2018 that doctors would be able to prescribe cannabis based medicines, including for severe epilepsy.
However, parents found that they could not easily access medicines without paying thousands of pounds for an import license.
Besides, many doctors would not prescribe them, citing the lack of formal recommendations on the issue.
“This is really shocking. The law was amended last November, so that patients who could benefit from medical cannabis could be prescribed here,” said Peter Carroll of the campaign group End Our Pain.