The Home Office has released the medicinal cannabis oil it confiscated from
Billy Caldwell’s family, who had been using it to treat his severe epilepsy.
The government backdown came shortly after the 12-year-old’s mother, Charlotte, said she was confident the Home Office would grant a special licence so her son could be treated with the anti-epileptic cannabis medicine.
Sajid Javid said on Saturday he had used an exceptional power as home secretary to urgently issue a licence for Billy to be treated. “This is a very complex situation, but our immediate priority is making sure Billy receives the most effective treatment possible in a safe way,” he said.
“We have been in close contact with Billy’s medical team overnight and my decision is based on the advice of senior clinicians who have made clear this is a medical emergency. The policing minister met with the family on Monday and since then has been working to reach an urgent solution.”
The Home Office had been under intense pressure to allow Billy to be prescribed the medicine that had kept his seizures at bay for around 300 days before his doctor was forced to stop the prescriptions.
Billy had two seizures on Friday night after opiate-based medicines failed to control his condition, and was taken to Chelsea and Westminster hospital by ambulance.
Caldwell said they had “achieved the impossible” and criticised the “dreadful, horrific, cruel experience” that had deeply affected her son. “His little body has been completely broken and his little mind,” she said.
“I truly believe that somewhere in the Home Office there’s someone with a heart and I truly believe that Billy was pulling on their heart strings.”
Caldwell vowed to keep up her fight to allow others in the UK to have access to the medication they need. “My experience leaves me in no doubt that the Home Office can no longer play a role in the administration of medication for sick children in our country,” she said. “Children are dying in our country and it needs to stop now.”
The Caldwells’ MP, Órfhlaith Begley of Sinn Féin, welcomed Javid’s decision.
“Billy should never have been put in that position. The treatment was clearly working for him and he deteriorated badly once it ended, yet it still took intense lobbying to get the Home Office to reverse this cruel decision,” she said.
“I will continue to engage with the Home Office and the health authorities to ensure he can access his medication in the longer term so there is no repeat of the trauma he has suffered over recent weeks.”
The decision to allow Billy to be prescribed the treatment is the first time that cannabis oil containing THC, the psychoactive component, has been prescribed in the UK since it was made illegal in 1971.
A doctor in Northern Ireland had prescribed cannabis oil for Billy last year, when it became clear it was the only effective treatment. It was the first time a child had been issued the substance on the NHS.
The Home Office, however, ordered him to stop prescribing the medicine because it was “unlawful to possess Schedule 1 drugs”.
This prompted the Caldwells to go to Canada to obtain the medicine.
When they returned with six months’ worth of cannabis oil, it was confiscated and a minister told them that it would not be returned.
The Home Office then recommended three neurologists who could help manage Billy’s transition off cannabis oil, but none subsequently saw him. Caldwell said one of the experts told her they did not have the time, another was on holiday and the third did not return her calls.
Caldwell, from Castlederg, Co Tyrone, had been anxious to highlight what she said was the wider injustice of epileptic children not having access to medical cannabis.
Attention is likely to now turn to other families with children who have similar conditions to Billy. Many have followed the Caldwell case closely and are calling for laws to be relaxed to make cannabis medicine easier to access in the UK.