Luzita has been an extraordinary, fearless campaigner who has been at the forefront of campaigns for Medical Cannabis. She chose the title of #cancercriminal because she was forced to break the law to treat her cancer. A lovely post on her Facebook page said: "She fought the prejudice, fear and misinformation. Squarely putting a mirror up to the hypocrisy of politicians who make money from growing it commercially while at the same time denying it to their own people so desperately in need of its medicine. When she stood up to speak, people listened, they dare not because she wasn’t going to back down".
Luzita converted her skeptical integrative health team, including GP, to buying into her belief that cannabis has been the key to her on-going vibrancy. Even last month she was appearing in videos as a cannabis patient advocate talking about treating symptoms: https://youtu.be/Yznfn_8qZV8
Indeed once you start looking into this whole area there are a host of articles about cannabis and its use in treatment of cancer and symptom management (i) - including lots in PubMed. More research is needed as we still need to learn more about its effectiveness, dose, side-effects and more but there is more than enough evidence out there to make it readily available. This blog post is not for a discussion on that now - am sure I will do a post in the future.
As part of her campaigning, Luzita spoke in Parliament with the United Patients Alliance, a Not For Profit organisation run by chronically ill patient volunteers, talking about cannabis. See her speech here: https://youtu.be/Vz6kUEqhb_0
Luzita fully supported the campaign for the trial launched in 2018 to target 20,000 patients with cannabis. Indeed she was signed up to participate and I’m told she became legal a few weeks before dying with her first cannabis description for pain relief. However disappointingly the trial has got off to a rocky start with only 12 prescriptions being made in the first year (ii) and few, if any after that up to this summer(iii). It seems despite growing evidence of how supportive medical cannabis can be, there is still a reluctance to prescribe in the NHS. Luzita's work is changing that - many of us need to continue her work.
Here’s another film with Luzita sharing how she got interested in cannabis: https://youtu.be/zoAbTPISpt0
Luzita also lived to see the introduction of the Cancard on 30th November; patients with a multitude of health conditions will have the right to apply for Cancard (iv). Journalist Roland Sebestyen, writes: "The card, which is backed by police commissioners, communicates to police officers that a person should not be arrested for consuming self-sourced ‘illegal’ cannabis as a medicine. Up to 1.1 million people could be eligible for a Cancard by 2021, removing the fear of arrest and prosecution for possession. All patients with a health condition, that is currently being privately prescribed for at a high cost, will be eligible for the card”.
In terms of Cancer and this card, the conditions that are included are: "Anxiety, Chemotherapy-induced nausea, Cancer-related appetite loss, Depression, Palliative care." I’ve heard very little about this card so would love to hear how this is working?
Here’s another film with Luzita sharing how she got interested in cannabis: https://youtu.be/zoAbTPISpt0
Thoughts with her husband, Terry and her family and close friends. Thank you Luzita for all you did - know we will continue the work.
Notes
See also Tedx talk and one story about its use with pain: https://youtu.be/jyAGlb8PMRc
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