Can you get medical cannabis for chronic pain in Portsmouth?

Everything that decides this is national -- the law, the guidance, the evidence and who is allowed to prescribe. What living in Portsmouth actually changes is narrower than the question suggests, and this page is mostly about being straight with you on which is which.

Is medical cannabis legal in Portsmouth?

Yes. Cannabis-based products for medicinal use have been lawful on a specialist prescription throughout the UK since 1 November 2018, and Portsmouth is no exception -- there is no local variation in this.

The Misuse of Drugs Regulations 2001 were amended in 2018 to move cannabis-based products for medicinal use into Schedule 2. That was a UK-wide change made at Westminster, and drugs policy is not devolved, so the same rule applies in every nation of the UK.

What it did not do is make cannabis legal, or create a local scheme in Portsmouth that you can apply to. It created one narrow route: a doctor on the GMC specialist register decides, for a named patient, that a cannabis-based product is appropriate. Everything else about cannabis remains a criminal offence, and holding a prescription for chronic pain does not change that for anything you did not obtain on it.

So the honest answer to the question people in Portsmouth actually mean -- can I get this -- is that legality is not the obstacle. The obstacle is whether a specialist concludes that your chronic pain meets the threshold, which is a clinical judgement and not a formality.

Can you get it on the NHS in Portsmouth?

In principle yes, in practice almost never. An NHS prescription would have to be started by a consultant on the GMC specialist register working in a trust commissioned by NHS Hampshire and Isle of Wight ICB, and funded through that route.

Since the law changed in November 2018, NHS prescribing of unlicensed cannabis-based products has stayed in the low hundreds across the whole of England. NHS Hampshire and Isle of Wight ICB is not an outlier in this: the constraint is national guidance and the evidence base, not a local policy you could appeal.

Where NHS prescriptions do happen they are overwhelmingly the licensed products for the narrow indications NICE supports, initiated in a specialist centre. A request to a GP in Portsmouth cannot start this, because GPs cannot initiate an unlicensed cannabis-based medicine at all -- only a specialist can.

That is why most people in Portsmouth who hold a prescription got it privately. It is worth being clear-eyed that this is a cost question as much as a clinical one, and that the NHS route remains open in theory if your specialist thinks your case meets it.

What the evidence shows for chronic pain

You should know before reading further that NICE recommends against it. NICE guideline NG144 recommends that cannabis-based medicines are not offered for chronic pain outside a clinical trial, because the trials that exist are small, short and inconsistent.

That recommendation is national. It applies in Portsmouth exactly as it applies anywhere else in the UK, and no specialist anywhere can set it aside because of where you live.

It does not make a prescription unlawful. A specialist may still prescribe outside NICE guidance for an individual patient where they can justify it, and some do. But they are departing from guidance when they do, they have to document why, and they are accountable for that decision -- which is the reason a consultation for chronic pain asks so much about what you have already tried.

First-line treatment remains a pain management programme, physiotherapy, and the non-opioid options in the NICE chronic pain guideline. If that has not been worked through, a specialist will usually say so rather than prescribe.

Who can prescribe, and what they check

Only a consultant on the GMC specialist register -- for chronic pain usually a specialist in pain medicine. A GP in Portsmouth cannot start this, however supportive they are.

The specialist register requirement is the core control in the 2018 regulations, and it is the thing most often misunderstood. It is not a seniority badge. It means the prescriber has completed specialist training and is listed on a public register you can check yourself before you book anything.

• A confirmed diagnosis, not a self-assessment or an online quiz
• Evidence that licensed treatments for chronic pain have been tried and either did not work or could not be tolerated
• Your full medical history, including a personal or family history of psychosis, which is the most important contraindication in this field
• Other medicines you take, because interactions are real
• Whether you drive, and what you do for work

Your GP records matter more than anything you say in the appointment. A specialist who cannot see a documented history of chronic pain and of the treatments already tried generally cannot prescribe, because the unlicensed route requires them to show why the licensed options were not enough.

How an assessment works if you live in Portsmouth

Appointments are held remotely, so where you live in the South East does not decide what care you can reach.

That is worth stating plainly because location pages in this sector often imply a local site that does not exist. Flora House does not have premises in Portsmouth. What it has is a remote service regulated on the same footing as any other independent provider, which is the model most UK medical cannabis care now uses.

1. You share your GP summary care record or a printed history. Without it, most specialists will not proceed
2. A specialist in pain medicine reviews whether your chronic pain and your treatment history meet the threshold
3. If they do, you discuss what is being proposed, what is known about it, and what the risks are -- including the effect on driving and on work
4. If they do not, you should be told so directly. A consultation that cannot end in a refusal is not an assessment

Being outside a big city is not the disadvantage it once was for this kind of care, and for the South East specifically the remote model removes the travel that used to make specialist review impractical. It does not remove the clinical threshold.

Getting your medicine in Portsmouth

From a registered UK pharmacy, by tracked delivery to your address in Portsmouth. It is not dispensed in the appointment and it is not available over a counter.

A Schedule 2 prescription goes to a pharmacy registered with the General Pharmaceutical Council, which dispenses against the prescription and sends it to you. The pack is labelled in your name, and that label is what identifies the medicine as lawfully yours for as long as you have it.

Delivery to Portsmouth is by a tracked service that requires a signature. There is no meaningful difference in how this works between the South East and anywhere else in the UK -- the pharmacy posts it, and the controlled-drug rules that govern how it is packed and recorded are national.

Keep the medicine in its labelled container. This is the single most practical piece of advice on this page: a decanted supply in an unlabelled tin is, to anyone who finds it, indistinguishable from illegal cannabis.

Driving and police in Portsmouth

A prescription gives you a statutory defence, not an exemption. It is Hampshire and Isle of Wight Constabulary you would be explaining that to, and it is still an offence to drive while impaired.

Section 5A of the Road Traffic Act 1988 sets a near-zero limit for THC. A prescription provides a medical defence to that specific charge, provided the medicine was taken in accordance with the directions you were given.

That defence does nothing for the separate offence of driving while unfit through drugs, under section 4. If an officer from Hampshire and Isle of Wight Constabulary judges that your driving is impaired, the prescription is irrelevant to that charge. People taking a cannabis-based medicine for chronic pain should assume that impairment is possible, particularly after a dose change.

• Carry the medicine in its pharmacy-labelled container
• Keep a copy of the prescription or the clinic's letter with you
• Do not drive after a dose increase until you know how it affects you
• Expect a roadside swab to be positive -- the defence operates after that point, not instead of it

Being stopped is not an accusation of anything. Hampshire and Isle of Wight Constabulary officers encounter prescribed controlled drugs routinely, and a labelled pack with a prescription is a normal and sufficient explanation.

What to do next

Get your GP records together, and read the UK-wide page on chronic pain before you book anything.

The location does not change your eligibility. Everything that decides whether someone with chronic pain can be prescribed is national -- the law, the guidance, the evidence and the specialist register -- so the most useful next step is not a local one.

1. Request your summary care record from your GP practice
2. Read what the evidence does and does not show for chronic pain
3. Check that whoever you are considering is on the GMC specialist register
4. Be ready to be told no, and treat a service that never says it as a warning sign

Patient guide · Written by the Flora House editorial team · Last reviewed: 23 September 2026