Families from the east fight for access to medicinal cannabis three years after the law changed

Tanya Mercer went to meet one family who attended the protest.

Campaigners from the region have been to Westminster today as part of a protest to allow families to access medical cannabis under prescription in the UK.

The group 'End Our Pain' said that families were being left thousands of pounds out of pockets after paying for private prescriptions - despite a change in the law three years ago allowing certain patients to treatment through the NHS.

Despite the changes to the law, only 3 NHS prescriptions have been issued for this medical cannabis. It contains only tiny levels of the active ingredient which gets recreational drug users high.

Many parents, including Rocco's from Woodbridge in Suffolk say that they worry that other families will not be able to afford the private prescription.

Rocco has a serious form of epilepsy and at one point he was having three major seizures a day.  

Today Jon and Steph joined other families in Westminster to lobby MPs to make the drug readily available and more easily prescribed on the NHS.

Matt Hudson went to meet one family who relies on medical cannabis.

Another family that also need help are Indie-Rose Montgomery's family from Suffolk.

They are paying hundreds of pounds a month privately because they can't get an NHS prescription.

They weren't able to go along to the protest today. But Tannie has set up a legal CBD distribution company to help other families.

Both sets of parents believe it is safer and more effective than powerful drugs which are routinely prescribed to control epilepsy.