What does “Medical weed” mean?
An informal name for cannabis prescribed as a medicine. The formal UK term is a cannabis-based product for medicinal use.
Medical weed in plain English
An informal name for cannabis prescribed as a medicine. The formal UK term is a cannabis-based product for medicinal use.
Nothing in law recognises the phrase, and neither does a prescription. Patients use it, and so does almost everyone searching for this subject, but a clinic letter, a pharmacy label and the regulations themselves will say cannabis-based product for medicinal use. Medical marijuana and medicinal cannabis are the same idea under different words.
The word medical does not describe a different plant or a stronger one. It describes where the material came from and what was done to it: grown to pharmaceutical standards, tested batch by batch for cannabinoid content and for contamination, labelled with what it actually contains, and dispensed by a pharmacy against a prescription written by a specialist on the GMC Specialist Register.
Cannabis obtained illicitly may well be the same cultivar. None of the rest of that is true of it, and calling it medical does not make possession lawful.
Frequently asked questions
What does medical weed mean?
An informal name for cannabis prescribed as a medicine. The formal UK term is a cannabis-based product for medicinal use.
Sources and further reading
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