Legal, but Not Equal – Why Ethnic Minorities Are Still Locked Out of the UK’s Medical Cannabis System
- Brainz Magazine
- 6 days ago
- 5 min read
Berta Kaguako is the Co-Founder and Managing Director for EthVida, a patient educational platform that promotes plant medicine and a holistic healthcare approach. As a patient herself, Berta has made a remarkable transformation, using cannabis based medical products to manage 7 diagnoses and 50+ symptoms. And now advocates for plant medicine.
Mental health doesn’t discriminate, but access to support does. Across the UK, ethnic minority communities face a mental health crisis that too often goes unseen. Anxiety, depression, trauma, and isolation are on the rise, yet seeking help remains a cultural, financial, and systemic challenge. For many, opening up to a doctor or therapist feels impossible, not because the pain isn’t real, but because the system doesn’t feel safe.
When care isn’t accessible, people find their own ways to cope. And for many, that coping mechanism is cannabis.
The hidden act of self-medication
In communities where mental health is rarely spoken about and even less often treated, self-medication becomes a silent survival tool.
People turn to cannabis not for recreation, but for relief to sleep, to quiet racing thoughts, to ease the weight of stress and unspoken trauma. It’s an act of healing born out of necessity. Yet, what’s often seen as “misuse” is, in truth, a reflection of a system that’s failed to provide alternatives.
A 2024 UK study found that 1.77 million adults are using illicit cannabis to self-treat diagnosed health conditions, most commonly anxiety, depression, and chronic pain. This means that for every legally prescribed patient, dozens are managing their conditions alone, without oversight or guidance.[1]
Despite its growing normalisation, cannabis use among ethnic minorities remains heavily stigmatised. Conversations about mental health are still taboo in many cultures, and the judgment attached to cannabis adds another layer of shame. The result? People continue to medicate in silence without support, without structure, and without safety.
Legal, but not for everyone
When medical cannabis was legalised in the UK in November 2018, it was hailed as a turning point for compassionate care. Yet, seven years later, data reveal a glaring gap. Very few ethnic minority patients are accessing medical cannabis services.
As of 2025, between 50,000 and 60,000 patients are legally prescribed medical cannabis in the UK, projected to rise to around 80,000 by the end of the year.
Nearly all prescriptions are issued privately. NHS access remains extremely limited to conditions like severe epilepsy, MS spasticity, and chemotherapy-related nausea.
Meanwhile, an estimated 1.77 million people continue to self-medicate with illicit cannabis for health reasons.
This divide highlights a key inequality that legality doesn’t always equal accessibility. The same structural barriers that have historically limited access to mental healthcare, mistrust, cost, stigma, and lack of representation, are now mirrored in the medical cannabis landscape.
Even with legality on their side, many still fear the consequences of admitting to cannabis use to a doctor. That fear is not unfounded. It’s rooted in generations of over-policing, criminalisation, and systemic bias.
The double standard
Walk into any high street wellness shop today and you’ll find CBD oils, cannabis-derived balms, and hemp teas marketed as holistic essentials. Yet, for Black and South Asian communities, the same plant carries connotations of criminality rather than care.
This isn’t just cultural, it’s systemic.
Black people in England are 3.5 times more likely to be detained under the Mental Health Act than White people (228 per 100,000 vs. 64 per 100,000).
Black people are also four times more likely to be stopped and searched by police, 24.5 searches per 1,000 compared to 5.9 per 1,000 for White people.[2]
So, while cannabis has been rebranded as a luxury medicine or wellness trend for some, it remains a symbol of danger and deviance for others. The message is clear that cannabis is “healing” when you’re white and “harmful” when you’re not.
A call for change: Building a cannabis pathway
If cannabis genuinely helps people manage pain, anxiety, and trauma, then everyone deserves equal access to that care.
We need a culturally competent cannabis pathway, one that recognises and responds to the realities faced by ethnic minority patients. This means:
Representation and training: Clinicians should understand cultural beliefs, historical mistrust, and stigma.
Affordability and access: The current private model excludes low-income and marginalised patients. NHS pathways must expand.
Clinical oversight for self-medicating patients: Many already use cannabis. They deserve safe, informed care.
Repairing historical harm: Communities most criminalised by past cannabis laws must be prioritised in today’s medical frameworks.
This isn’t just about prescribing a plant. It’s about rebuilding trust, representation, and fairness in a healthcare system that has long left people behind.
From punishment to healing
For too long, we’ve criminalised coping and punished pain. Cannabis legalisation should have been an opportunity to right historic wrongs, to turn stigma into support. But until racial inequities in access, legitimacy, and representation are addressed, those wrongs continue.
It’s time to change the narrative. It’s time to listen, learn, and lead with compassion. And it’s time to ensure that the communities that carried the stigma of cannabis for decades are finally given a place at the table, not as outsiders, but as equals in healing.
Final thoughts
The story of medical cannabis in the UK is one of progress shadowed by inequality. The law may have changed, but the lived reality hasn’t, at least not for everyone.
Ethnic minorities remain disproportionately affected by mental health challenges, over-policed for cannabis use, and under-represented in legal cannabis treatment programmes. The numbers tell a clear story. Millions are self-medicating in silence while only tens of thousands receive care under supervision.
Cannabis, when used responsibly and supported by clinical guidance, can be a lifeline. But healing cannot flourish in fear. True reform requires more than legislation. It demands empathy, education, and equity.
Until our systems reflect those values, cannabis will remain both medicine and metaphor, a plant that reveals not only how we heal but who we allow to heal.
Read more from Berta Kaguako
Berta Kaguako, Health and Social Care Consultant
Berta Kaguako is a Health and Social Care Consultant, with an Undergraduate in Psychotherapy and a Master's in Psychoanalysis. Berta’s background is in Mental Health, Substance Misuse and Children & Families: in both a therapeutic and senior management capacity, having won 3x Blooming Strong Awards (Recognition from UN for contribution to violence against Women). Berta is also the Co-Founder and Managing Director for EthVida, and independently runs the wellbeing service/educational platform.
References:
[1] Martins, D. et al. (2024). The use of illicit cannabis for self-medication in the UK: A cross-sectional study. PLOS ONE/PubMed Central (PMC11337234).
[2] UK Government – Ethnicity Facts & Figures. (2023). Detentions under the Mental Health Act.
[3] Office for National Statistics (ONS). (2024). Stop and search statistics, England and Wales: year ending March 2023.
[4] NHS Digital. (2024). Mental Health Act Statistics, Annual Figures 2023–24.
[5] Public Health England/NatCen. (2024). Non-opiate and Cannabis Drug Use in Minority Ethnic Groups.
[6] Cannabis Industry Council (CIC). (2023). Number of UK Medical Cannabis Patients Reaches 32,000.
[7] Releaf UK. (2024). How Many Medical Cannabis Patients Are There in the UK?
[8] ITIJ (International Travel & Health Insurance Journal). (2024). UK’s Demand for Medical Cannabis Surges.
[9] Cannabis Health News. (2022). Survey reveals a broad spectrum of issues facing UK cannabis patients.
[10] UK Government – Ethnicity Facts & Figures. (2023). Adults using NHS-funded mental health and learning disability services.
[11] Home Office. (2024). Police Powers and Procedures, England and Wales: Stop and Search, Arrests and Mental Health Detentions, Year Ending March 2024.
[12] NICE Guidelines (NG144) – Cannabis-based medicinal products.
