Is It Misuse If You’re Using It as Medicine?
One of the most common phrases used in Britain’s drug debate is “cannabis misuse.”
It’s repeated in government reports, police statements and media headlines so often that few people stop to question what it actually means.
But perhaps we should.
Because if someone is using cannabis to relieve chronic pain, manage the symptoms of PTSD, reduce muscle spasms or simply get through another sleepless night, is that really misuse?
Or is it medicine without official permission?
What does “misuse” actually mean?
Language matters.
To misuse something is to use it incorrectly or for a purpose it was never intended.
If someone drinks a bottle of whisky every morning to get through the day, most people would agree that’s misuse.
If someone takes prescription painkillers to get high rather than to treat pain, that’s also misuse.
But what about someone living with chronic back pain who finds cannabis relieves symptoms after conventional treatments have failed?
They’re using a substance for relief.
They’re attempting to improve their quality of life.
They’re not necessarily seeking intoxication.
Calling that “misuse” is no longer an objective description.
It’s a legal judgement.
The law doesn’t decide whether something works
For decades, the official position was that cannabis had no recognised medicinal value.
Then, in 2018, the UK legalised cannabis-based medicinal products prescribed by specialist doctors.
The plant didn’t suddenly evolve.
Scientists didn’t discover cannabis for the first time.
The medicinal compounds had always existed.
What changed was the government’s willingness to recognise them.
That raises an uncomfortable question.
If cannabis became medicine in 2018, what exactly were patients using in 2017?
The same plant.
The same cannabinoids.
The same potential benefits.
The difference was never botanical.
It was legal.
Self-medication is older than modern medicine
Long before pharmacies existed, people treated themselves with whatever nature provided.
Willow bark was used centuries before aspirin.
Foxglove eventually became the heart medicine digoxin.
Many modern medicines began life as traditional remedies.
Human beings have always experimented with plants in search of relief.
Sometimes they were wrong.
Sometimes they discovered medicines that science later validated.
Cannabis is unusual because its medicinal properties are no longer seriously disputed.
The debate today is not whether cannabis has medical value.
It is who is allowed to access it.
When the healthcare system says “no”
Imagine someone living with chronic pain.
They’ve tried conventional medication.
They’ve lived with side effects.
They’ve followed medical advice.
Nothing works.
Eventually they discover cannabis provides relief.
Yet they cannot obtain a prescription.
Do we really believe their pain disappears because the NHS declines to prescribe it?
Or have we simply placed them in an impossible position?
Either continue suffering…
…or become a criminal.
That isn’t a medical decision.
It’s a legal one.
Permission doesn’t create medicine
One of the strangest ideas in the cannabis debate is that official permission somehow determines whether a substance is medicinal.
It doesn’t.
A doctor’s prescription doesn’t create the therapeutic effect.
It recognises it.
Morphine relieves pain whether it’s prescribed or stolen.
Insulin lowers blood sugar regardless of who administers it.
Cannabis doesn’t become medicinal because someone signs a prescription pad.
It becomes legal.
Those are not the same thing.
But let’s be honest…
None of this means every cannabis user is self-medicating.
Some people use cannabis recreationally.
Some enjoy the intoxication.
Some use it socially.
Others may use it irresponsibly.
Pretending otherwise weakens the argument.
The point isn’t that every user is a patient.
The point is that the law often refuses to recognise the people who genuinely are.
A blanket policy struggles to distinguish between someone escaping reality and someone simply trying to reduce pain enough to sleep.
So what are the police enforcing?
Police officers don’t write drug laws.
They enforce legislation passed by Parliament.
That distinction matters.
However, it is reasonable to ask what society hopes to achieve by criminalising someone who is clearly using cannabis as symptom relief rather than for criminal gain.
If cannabis is recognised as medicine under certain circumstances, then criminalising those who cannot realistically access that system begins to look less like a health policy and more like a policy of legal compliance.
The law says who may possess cannabis.
It doesn’t change what cannabis is.
A question worth asking
Perhaps the real debate isn’t whether cannabis can be medicine.
Britain has already answered that.
Perhaps the question is this:
Can something genuinely be called “misuse” when the person using it is seeking relief rather than recreation?
Because if the same plant can be medicine for one citizen and a criminal offence for another, then maybe the word misuse deserves far more scrutiny than the plant itself.
Next in the series
Part 4: Crime or Commerce? Is Cannabis Prohibition About Public Health, or Control?
We’ll examine whether modern cannabis laws primarily protect public health, or whether regulation, taxation and control have become the real battleground in the debate.