Medicinal cannabis prescriptions (FOI)

Request

Since the prescription of medicinal cannabis was legalised, please provide a figure for how many prescriptions of medicinal cannabis products have been issued.

Please provide a breakdown of how many prescriptions have been issued by consultants and how many by GPs since their ability to prescribe was made possible.

Response

Health and Community Services (HCS) response

All prescriptions for medicinal cannabis (other than Sativex which has been legal for over 10 years) are issued by private clinics and dispensed by community pharmacies as private prescriptions. Information is therefore not held. Some information from pharmacies on quantities dispensed is provided to HCS.  However the information would require interrogation and manipulation. It is also estimated that a review of data would exceed the 12.5 hours prescribed by regulation under the Freedom of Information (Jersey) Law 2011. Such data would not necessarily give the number of actual prescriptions. The Freedom of Information Law does not require a Scheduled Public Authority to manipulate data. 

Customer and Local Services response

This information is not held. Information on the amounts and types of medicine prescribed is only held if the medicine is on the Jersey Prescribed List and if it has been prescribed by a primary care prescriber, approved to issue prescriptions under the Health Insurance Law. Cannabis is not on the Prescribed list and information is not held regarding private prescriptions or private clinics. Therefore, the number of Cannabis prescriptions which have been issued, privately or otherwise is not known.

Article applied

Article 3 - Meaning of “information held by a public authority”

For the purposes of this Law, information is held by a public authority if –

(a)     it is held by the authority, otherwise than on behalf of another person; or

(b)     it is held by another person on behalf of the authority.