Professor Bryan Lynch:

The Chairman echoed the concerns of patients and their families. I hear those concerns regularly and share many of them. First, many people access unlicensed versions of CBD in the community. The problem we have with those products is that we do not know what it is in them.

We know what is stated on the tin, but we do not know what is really in the tin. That is why we are looking for properly manufactured, verified and sourced products.

The point about the low content of THC is very good as well. The product I am accessing via ministerial licence for a couple of my patients - in total, I have had about eight applications for a ministerial licence - has a very low content of THC and that is why I am happy using it. It is a minuscule amount of THC, so that is an excellent point. Unfortunately, that still comes under the heading of a substance that is under the substance abuse guidelines. The Epidiolex product, which is a pharmaceutical product, is essentially a pure CBD product and does not. That is a very valid point. Unfortunately, CannEpil, which is the only product that we see coming through the MCAP now, is a high THC product. It is certainly not an insignificant content of THC, so it just not something that has any evidence base for prescribing for epilepsy.

You made a number of extremely valid points. I have met many families and I have many children under my care where families have accessed non-proprietary CBD-based products from various sources themselves. I share your frustration, Chairman, and I echo the frustration of my neurology colleagues, adult and paediatric, that we began this process in 2016 and it is a very slow process.