In order to best serve the medical cannabis patient population in Europe, operators need an understanding of who the patients are and why they rely on these medicines.
Prohibition Partners has gathered data for European medical cannabis patients from national government agencies and independent research groups to investigate high-level statistics on patients being prescribed medical cannabis.
So, any stereotypes of medicinal cannabis users as being 20-something, healthy recreational users looking for a legal source could not be further from the truth.’.
Medical cannabis shows promise in treating a wide range of conditions, being a modulator of the endocannabinoid system, and having a safe and effective anti-inflammatory profile.
The needs of patients vary widely by condition, for example where CBD/Epidiolex® is useful for epileptic patients, THC is more useful for the reduction of nausea.
Chronic pain affects as many as 1 in 3 people in developed countries, usually defined as pain occurring most days or every day for six months.
This is reflected by the types of medical cannabis currently available in Europe, with most countries having a wider array of medications with high THC and balanced THC:CBD than high CBD alone.
Early data from Project Twenty21 indicates that the patient groups in the UK are somewhat younger than in other European countries, with an average age of around 39.
The Federal Institute for Drugs and Medical Devices in Germany has noted that many prescriptions for cannabis flower go unreported, which could skew the data as these patients are known to be more often male and slightly younger than patients using other products.
According to data from Project Twenty21, the UK’s patient population is more comparable to that in North America in terms of gender balance, with a 66% majority being male as of April this year.
As with demographics, gender plays a role in patient product choice.
It should be noted that the data represent a small portion of the total patient population on the continent, with millions of people still self-prescribing medical cannabis and large swathes of patients not being included in published data, such as the population in Switzerland.
Cannabis remains illegal in most countries so please reference your local laws in relation to medical or recreational use.