17/03/2026
Cannabis and Mental Health Prescribing 🌱🧠
Headlines are declaring that cannabis doesn’t work for mental health. Our patients — thousands of them — are living proof that the picture is far more complex than that.
The Lancet meta-analysis reviewed randomised controlled trials using oral cannabis formulations. The lead researcher himself acknowledged that ‘in real life, people typically use smoked cannabis, and there is even less evidence’ — meaning the studies did not reflect how most patients actually medicate. ‘No evidence of effect in these trials’ is not the same as ‘this medicine does not work.’
United Patients Alliance represents patients who have, in many cases, exhausted every conventional option. SSRIs. CBT. Opioids. Pregabalin. For them, a meta-analysis of trials they were never part of does not describe their reality.
In our 2025 patient survey, one respondent with anxiety, depression and PTSD told us: ‘For the first time, I feel seen and supported in treating my condition with a medicine that actually works for me — and without the harmful side effects of previous prescriptions.’
Another, prescribed for anxiety and depression after antidepressants failed following bereavement, said simply: ‘Without it I don’t think my life would be the same or that I’d have any quality of life like I do now.’
We are not asking anyone to ignore the science. We are asking that the science catches up with our patients. Real-world evidence studies, patient-reported outcomes, and research into treatment-resistant populations are urgently needed — and urgently missing.
Dismissing medical cannabis on the basis of incomplete evidence doesn’t just misrepresent the science. For the patients who rely on it, it causes direct harm.
For real patient experiences from those who hold a legal prescription in the UK, visit: https://www.unitedpatientsalliance.org/realpatients-realoutcomes 🔗
