The UK cannabis industry could be worth more than £5 billion per year and save the National Health Service (NHS) billions in healthcare costs, according to a new report that highlights how the sector remains largely untapped seven years after legalisation.
Published by the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Medical Cannabis under Prescription, the findings highlight the need for urgent change to “unlock the potential” of the UK medical cannabis sector and ensure more patients have access to potentially life-saving medicinal cannabis products.
The report, Recommendations for Government (November 2025), warns that seven years after legalisation, the industry remains severely restricted by complex regulation and cautious guidance, despite medical cannabis being “safe, effective and proven to transform lives” for patients with chronic pain, anxiety, epilepsy and multiple sclerosis.
Cannabis was legalised in the UK for medical purposes on the 1st November 2018, but despite this, there have been just six full-spectrum cannabis prescriptions on the NHS.
The report states that approximately 1.4 million people in the UK – just over 2% of the population – are currently using cannabis purchased from the legacy market for medicinal purposes. A further two to three million people, approximately 3% to 4% of the population, may benefit from a cannabis prescription.
“This figure may seem high, but there are significant numbers of people in potential need of medical cannabis; people with epilepsy, MS, people with mental health disorders, such as anxiety and those suffering with any kind of chronic pain,” the report states. “Also, there are potentially many more people who would benefit but have not wished to criminalise themselves by buying products on the black market.”
“These are people who are taking up much NHS resource, clinical time and hospital beds and are also those who often require formal and informal care, benefit support and many of whom cannot work. The health economic benefit of helping these people is potentially immense.”
The APPG has put forward eight key recommendations, including establishing a central fund for children with drug-resistant epilepsy already prescribed cannabis, creating a national approval system for new paediatric epilepsy patients, and commissioning new NICE guidelines that recognise cannabis as a botanical product rather than a conventional pharmaceutical.
Economic opportunity
The report emphasises that over 70 countries now have legal medical cannabis frameworks, with the global market currently estimated at £16.5 billion and projected to exceed £55 billion by 2027. The UK risks missing out on this opportunity despite having “world-leading” expertise in pharmaceuticals and medical science.
Currently, around 75,000 people receive private prescriptions for medical cannabis at an average cost of £300 per month, with parents of epileptic children forced to pay up to £2,000 monthly. The report describes this situation as “iniquitous and presumably not what Parliament intended when the law was changed”.
Professor Barnes highlighted the case of Alfie Dingley, whose NHS care costs fell by £130,000 annually after starting cannabis treatment, with the child now seizure-free, off expensive medication, and returned to school.
Calls for regulatory reform
The recommendations include commissioning a comprehensive health-economic analysis, stating that “one recent study on the health economics of treating chronic pain with cannabis has shown a saving of £1,037 per patient per annum if cannabis is used, as opposed to normal treatment. Given the number of people with chronic pain in the UK then the potential savings amounted to over £23.6 billion.”
The APPG also calls for electronic prescribing of controlled drugs to be extended to the private sector, easing export restrictions for EU-GMP-compliant UK cannabis producers, and conducting a full inter-departmental review involving the Home Office, MHRA, Department of Health and Social Care, and Care Quality Commission.
“Without urgent reform, we will continue to see patients suffer and the UK will lose a once-in-a-generation opportunity to build a world-leading medical cannabis industry,” the report warns.
The recommendations have been developed through cross-party collaboration with experts from across the sector, designed to create what the APPG describes as “a clear, credible roadmap for a safe, ethical and economically powerful medical cannabis system in the UK”.
The full report is available to download from the UK Medical Cannabis Clinicians Society website.
