Interactive history The Cannabis History Atlas People have grown and used cannabis for thousands of years, for rope, food, medicine and faith. Drag the timeline to travel through time. The map shows each country’s cannabis laws in that year, and the pins show where key moments happened. Show 2026Today +–1:1 Key EarlierLater Read Play speed0.25x0.5x1x2x Pause at each moment ScrubbingNormalSlowFine Arrow keys jump between moments. Shift and arrow keys nudge the year. Legal status is simplified to one colour per country and dates before the 20th century are often approximate. Laws change often. If you travel with a prescription, check the current rules for the country you are visiting before you go. References

<p>The post Cannabis History Atlas first appeared on PatientsCann UK®.</p>

Medical Cannabis Awareness Week 2026: a week that belongs to everyone | PatientsCann UK® Skip to content Awareness1 to 7 November 2026Community owned Medical Cannabis Awareness Week belongs to everyone Every year, from 1 to 7 November, patients, carers, families and supporters across the UK speak up about medical cannabis. No one owns the week. It is run by the community, for the community, and anyone can take part. PatientsCann UK®Awareness#MCAW #MCAW2026 Get involved this November On this page What is MCAW? A week for everyone The logo Why a week Our tours This year Get involved References At a glance When1 to 7 NovemberThe first week of November, every year. Why then1 November 2018The day medical cannabis became legal to prescribe in the UK. Who owns itNo oneIt is community owned and community run. Everyone is welcome. Join in#MCAW2026Share your story, host an event, or simply talk about it. Where it began What is Medical Cannabis Awareness Week? Medical Cannabis Awareness Week, often shortened to MCAW, is a yearly week of events, stories and conversations about cannabis as a medicine. It starts on 1 November. That date matters. On 1 November 2018, medical cannabis became legal to prescribe in the UK.2 The week was first started in 2020 by PLEA (Patient-Led Engagement for Access), a patient advocacy group.1,4 Patients shared their stories, doctors and advocates joined online panels, and people across the UK were asked to talk about medical cannabis with friends and family.1 In 2023, the week marked five years since medical cannabis became legal to prescribe, and ran from 1 to 7 November as it does every year.4 By then, PLEA had closed. The week could have faded away. Instead, the community picked it up and carried it on. Patients, volunteers and small groups kept the week alive, and PatientsCann UK® stepped in to help it grow. Community owned A week that belongs to everyone No person, company or group owns Medical Cannabis Awareness Week. It belongs to every patient who has ever had to explain their medicine. PatientsCann UK® MCAW has always been bigger than any one organisation. It grew because patients wanted it and because people gave their time for free. When the group that started it closed, the week did not close with it. That tells you who it really belongs to. Nobody needs permission to take part. You do not need to sign up to anyone, pay a fee or use a set logo. A patient talking to their GP, a family sharing a story online, a clinic holding an open day, a local group meeting in a cafe: all of these are Medical Cannabis Awareness Week. We think it should stay that way. PatientsCann UK® takes part every year, and we will keep doing so, but the week is not ours. It is yours. What MCAW is Community owned and community run. Free for anyone to join, share and take part in. Led by patients, their carers and their families. A shared moment, every 1 to 7 November. What MCAW is not Not owned by any person, company or organisation. Not something anyone needs permission to take part in. Not a brand or a product to sell. Not closed to anyone who wants to help. Free for everyone The MCAW logo, and yours These are the logos PatientsCann UK® uses for Medical Cannabis Awareness Week. We first used our logo in 2024, together with United Patients Alliance and the Medical Cannabis Patients Alliance (MCPA), a patient group that has since closed. We added two more for 2025. All of our logos are in the public domain. There is no copyright on them. Anyone can download them, print them, share them or change them, with no need to ask. After PLEA closed, the original MCAW logo was shared by patients, groups and businesses across the community. That logo has since been claimed under copyright. We do not think any symbol of this week should belong to one organisation, so ours are free for all. 2024 logoPublic domain. Free for anyone to use.Download 2025 logo, lightPublic domain. Free for anyone to use.Download 2025 logo, darkPublic domain. Free for anyone to use.Download Make your own. We would love to see how you picture Medical Cannabis Awareness Week. Design your own MCAW logo, share it on social media, tag PatientsCann UK® and use the hashtags: #MCAW#MCAW2026 Keeping it focused Why a week works better than a month Last year, some in the industry suggested a Medical Cannabis Awareness Month. It did not get off the ground, and we did not support it. A longer campaign sounds bigger, but it would take away the impact of the week. One loud moment. When everyone speaks up in the same seven days, the message is heard. Spread across a month, the same voices get lost. It fits patients. Many patients live with pain, fatigue or long-term illness. A week is something people can manage. A month is a lot to ask. It keeps the anniversary at the centre. The week starts on 1 November, the day medical cannabis became legal to prescribe. That link is part of what makes it meaningful. It stays about patients. A short, focused week keeps the attention on real people and real stories. What we have done On the road every November since 2023 PatientsCann UK® first took Medical Cannabis Awareness Week on the road in 2023, with a trial tour of Brighton, Hove and Exeter. Since 2024, we have followed a set route from Northern Ireland to London. We travel the whole of the UK, so that patients in every nation have a chance to meet us, ask questions and feel less alone. In 2024, the tour took patient advocates to Belfast, Glasgow, Birmingham, Cardiff and London.3,5 Where we can, we also join other events along the way. 1Northern IrelandWe start the week in Northern Ireland. 2ScotlandThen across the water to Scotland. 3The middle of EnglandDown to the heart of England. 4WalesOut

<p>The post Medical Cannabis Awareness Week first appeared on PatientsCann UK®.</p>

PatientsCann UK | Some Are More Equal Than Others Skip to content Equality law Prescription discrimination Opinion and analysis Some Are More Equal Than Others… Medical cannabis patients are often told that they are protected by the Equality Act 2010. For many patients, that may be true. But it is not true simply because somebody has been prescribed cannabis. PatientsCann UK® Equality Act 2010 and medical cannabis By Sal Aziz, Director On this page A prescription is not a disability certificate Who decides Presumed disabled? Volunteers Capacity matters Routes to discrimination Exceptions Finding common ground References Please note This article is general information about equality law and how PatientsCann UK® approaches it. It is not legal or medical advice. The legal test A prescription is not a disability certificate The Equality Act protects disability as a legal status. It does not create a separate protected characteristic of being a patient, taking prescribed medication or holding a medical cannabis prescription. It also does not apply universally to every relationship between an individual and an organisation. Protection depends both on whether the person meets the statutory definition of disability and on the capacity in which the organisation is dealing with them. That distinction creates an uncomfortable question: if the same practical accommodation can safely be offered to every lawful patient, why should compassion depend on whether the patient can prove that their condition crosses a legal threshold? Section 6 of the Equality Act defines disability as a physical or mental impairment having a substantial and long-term adverse effect on a person’s ability to carry out normal day-to-day activities. “Substantial” means more than minor or trivial, while “long-term” generally means that the effect has lasted, or is likely to last, at least 12 months or for the rest of the person’s life. Recurring conditions can also qualify. Some conditions receive special treatment. Cancer, HIV infection and multiple sclerosis are disabilities from diagnosis. Progressive conditions may qualify before their effects become substantial where the statutory test is satisfied. The Act also protects people who previously had a qualifying disability, subject to limited exceptions. Crucially for medical cannabis patients, the assessment normally considers what the impairment would be like without the measures being used to treat or correct it. Schedule 1 expressly includes medical treatment within those measures. A patient whose condition is well controlled by cannabis is therefore not necessarily excluded from protection simply because the treatment works. The relevant question may be what the condition would probably do without that treatment. Many medical cannabis patients are prescribed for serious, persistent or recurring conditions and are therefore likely to satisfy the definition. It would, however, be unsafe to claim that every patient is legally disabled. A prescription may provide important evidence of an underlying impairment and treatment, but it does not by itself establish the substantial, long-term effect required by section 6. The Equality Act’s exclusion of addiction to alcohol, nicotine or another substance should not be confused with lawful treatment using a controlled drug. The 2010 Disability Regulations exclude addiction itself as an impairment, subject to an exception where it originally resulted from medically prescribed drugs or other medical treatment. In most medical cannabis cases, the asserted disability will in any event be the underlying physical or mental impairment, not an assumed addiction to the prescribed medicine. Japan has arguably the most formalised and structured official framework in the world. The government issues physical booklets called Shōgaishatechō (障害者手帳) or Disability Handbook. Applications are generally made through the relevant local authority and supported by medical or specialist evidence. The precise assessment process depends on the type of certificate and the municipality involved. Pictured above is a Seishin Shōgaisha Hoken Fukushi Techō (精神障害者保健福祉手帳) or Mental Disability Health and Welfare Handbook. Similar schemes exist in other countries, such as Germany’s Schwerbehindertenausweis for severe disabilities. Whilst The Sunflower Scheme is available for anyone who self-identifies as having a hidden disability, and PIP is available for those with qualifying disability or long-term condition, no directly comparable scheme exists in the UK. 精神 手帳 京都市.jpg by Bitland is licensed under CC BY 4.0 Evidence and burden Who decides whether somebody is disabled? There is no universal Equality Act disability card and no general process through which every patient obtains a binding declaration before requesting fair treatment. Outside litigation, organisations and individuals must make practical decisions using the information reasonably available to them. Evidence might include a patient’s account of functional effects, prescription records and, where proportionate, relevant clinical or occupational-health evidence. If a dispute reaches legal proceedings, the court or tribunal ultimately determines whether the statutory definition was satisfied at the relevant time. Section 136 provides a shifting burden of proof in discrimination proceedings once there are facts from which a court could conclude, in the absence of another explanation, that a contravention occurred. That procedural rule does not make a prescription conclusive proof of disability, but neither does it entitle organisations to dismiss credible evidence until a patient has obtained a judgment. This leaves patients in a difficult position. They may have to disclose intimate medical information to establish rights that an organisation could have respected voluntarily from the outset. The more evidence demanded, the greater the intrusion. Yet if too little information is provided, an organisation may argue that it did not know, and could not reasonably have been expected to know, of the disability, particularly in a claim for discrimination arising from disability. Policy, not finding Should patients be presumed disabled in practice? As a strict statement of law, organisations should not declare every medical cannabis patient disabled. Not every patient will meet the definition, and disability is a status belonging to the person, not a label produced by the medicine. But there is an important difference between making a legal finding and adopting an inclusive policy. An organisation can usually choose to extend a proportionate adjustment, such as secure medicine storage, a private administration area, flexible breaks or an individual risk assessment, without first

<p>The post Some are more equal than others first appeared on PatientsCann UK®.</p>