The UK’s first medical cannabis support group, led by patients, for patients; United Patients Alliance provide tireless advocacy, compassionate campaigning, and essential education, to safeguard the patients’ voice in advancing legal access to cannabis therapeutics.
What We Do
ADVOCACY
We advocate on behalf of patients, to enable access to cannabis medicine through a safe and regulated system. We ensure all are treated with the compassion they deserve, and defend vulnerable patients from the harms of the criminal justice system.
CAMPAIGNING
We campaign for legal access to medical cannabis for patients with chronic conditions. We lobby parliament around drug policy reform, and collaborate with other organisations and stakeholders to facilitate effective projects.
EDUCATION
We provide information and resources to help improve quality of life for patients. We have created a space for the perspectives of medical cannabis patients to be shared with the public, policymakers, health-professionals, and the media.
Established in July 2014 with the support of Professor David Nutt and Caroline Lucas MP, United Patients Alliance was founded to represent the interests of patients choosing to consume medical cannabis to treat their chronic conditions. With some of the most vulnerable members of our society facing up to fourteen years in prison, we call attention to the injustice of prosecuting individuals for consuming a medicine that is legal elsewhere in the world.
Operating on a tiny budget, and led by a team of volunteer patients, we've been instrumental in lobbying the government to reschedule cannabis to allow it to be prescribed. Despite the wide body of clinical evidence supporting medical cannabis use, and a change in Drug Policy in November 2018 moving cannabis to schedule 2, the UK Government continues to deny patients a medication with a proven record of safety and efficacy.
United Patients Alliance have recently launched our own Patient First Pledge. We are also elated to be leading on Patient Access for Project Twenty21 as part of Drug Science’s Medical Cannabis Working Group, and are proud Stakeholders for the NICE Guidance being developed on cannabis-based products for medicinal use.
We have numerous achievements, and will continue working to improve access for patients. Our 2016 Patient Survey was commissioned by the APPG for Drug Policy Reform in order to support their Short Inquiry into Cannabis and Medicine, and we received over 1700 responses to our 2018 Patient Survey which has been reported at numerous conferences worldwide; and we have helped the MS Society to update their policy on cannabis.
