No high anxiety (Image: Dan Kitwood/Getty)

IT IS the first time I’ve been sent cannabis through the post but I’m unfazed – I’m probably not doing anything illegal.

My delivery is a MediPen. It’s an e-cigarette made using a strain of marijuana high in cannabidiol (CBD), the compound thought to give cannabis its purported medical benefits, and low in tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the one that gets you high.


It’s not the first low THC e-cigarette in the UK – a similar device called KanaVape has been on sale since last year – but MediPen is the first designed to give a high dose of CBD. It contains hemp oil imbued with 20 per cent CBD compared with KanaVape’s 5 per cent.

Therefore puffing on this is more likely to deliver benefits – at least that’s the claim. Researchers warn that there is no way to know for sure how much CBD any of these products contain, as they have not been not tested under the same stringent conditions as licensed medicines. “There are a lot of claims but no proof,” says Arno Hazekamp of Dutch firm Bedrocan, the only company in Europe that grows cannabis for medicinal use.

The idea is that vaping should make it easier for people to get hold of and use cannabis medicinally, for insomnia, or to relieve pain, for instance. Many don’t want to get high or just dislike having to puff smoke. Some put the drug into food but that takes longer to work and it has more variable effects.

“Many people who use cannabis medicinally don’t want to get high or dislike having to puff smoke”

In Canada and 23 US states people can legally take cannabis for medical reasons and vaping it is becoming more popular. However, warning letters were recently sent out to the makers of 18 medical cannabis products by the US Food and Drug Administration, which found many contained lower levels of CBD than advertised, with some containing none at all.

In the UK, the rules are stricter. The only approved cannabis-derived product is an expensive, under-the tongue spray, called Sativex, prescribed for people with multiple sclerosis. MediPen offers a cheaper, non-prescription alternative, claims Sam Asante of the Cardiff-based manufacturer.

However, the makers of MediPen and KanaVape can’t claim their products help in any specific health problems since they haven’t carried out the necessary clinical trials. Instead, they rely on people being aware of the medical effects of cannabis, and putting two and two together.

Health claims aside, the devices are probably legal. Hemp products have long been sold in UK shops, as they are assumed to have no narcotic effects. A spokesman for the Home Office said CBD was not illegal as it was not psychoactive. This I can vouch for. I get no kick from it. Apart from the mint choc chip flavour, I can barely tell I’m inhaling anything but fresh air.

Pain specialist William Notcutt of James Paget University Hospitals in Great Yarmouth, UK, has a different gripe – that the health benefits are exaggerated. “It’s being oversold,” he says. “There are shops in LA where they say it cures ingrowing toenails.”

At least CBD is unlikely to do any harm, says Notcutt, who consults for several makers of cannabis-based medicines. “The only way you could kill someone is by dropping it on their head.”

This article appeared in print under the headline “E-spliffs – medicinal cannabis minus the high”