Emma Appleby and her nine-year-old daughter Teagan were stopped at Southend Airport after flying from Amsterdam.[1] Border Force confiscated medicinal cannabis that Appleby had tried to bring into the United Kingdom illegally for her daughter, who has severe epilepsy.[1] The family, who are from Aylesham in Kent, was released from the airport after the seizure.[1] The three-month supply of medicines was confiscated after the family landed at Southend airport in Essex.[2]
She had bought 4,000 pounds worth of THC oil capsules in the Netherlands after being refused a prescription in the United Kingdom.[1] She bought a three-month supply of THC and cannabidiol, using money raised through crowdfunding, at a pharmacy in The Hague.[1] The family got the medicine prescribed by a paediatric neurologist at Erasmus Hospital in Rotterdam, collected it from a pharmacy and paid using fundraised money.[2] Teagan suffers from a rare chromosomal disorder called Isodicentric 15 as well as Lennox-Gastaut syndrome, which causes up to 300 seizures a day.[2]
It was illegal to bring the drug into the United Kingdom without a prescription, which doctors have been able to issue legally since 2018.[1] Doctors in the United Kingdom have refused to prescribe Teagan THC, a psychoactive compound found in cannabis.[1] A government spokesman said Border Force has a duty to enforce the law and stop the unlawful import of controlled substances into the United Kingdom.[1] Emma Appleby was bringing 4,600 pounds worth of THC capsules back to Britain after buying them in the Netherlands for nine-year-old Teagan.[3]
