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A mother whose campaign forced the British government to legalise medical cannabis in 2018 is now calling on health ministers to run regulated recreational pilots as the only credible solution to the UK's broken drug policy. Charlotte Caldwell successfully fought for her epileptic son Billy's right to access life-saving cannabis medication and her campaign culminated in the government's landmark rescheduling of cannabis-based medicines in November 2018. Billy has now been seizure-free for three years.

Now Charlotte Caldwell is behind a new campaign group TRACD, seeking permission from governments across the UK, Jersey, Guernsey and the Isle of Man to run controlled, evidence-gathering recreational pilots.

More than three million adults in the UK use cannabis recreationally each year, according to estimates based on ONS figures, but critics say the illicit market exposes them to unknown toxins, unregulated products, and unnecessary involvement in the criminal justice system.

You can have your say on whether cannabis should be legalised in the UK in our poll below.

Recreational cannabis is the most commonly used illicit drug in Britain, and experts say demand will exist whatever its legal status.

Charlotte said: "The current legal limbo means that cannabis users must buy from criminals, exposing them to unknown toxins, a wider array of health risks, and needless involvement in the justice system."

Her group believes the failure of the current approach extends to the medical cannabis system too. A University of Bath study published in January found that people who had sought or received a medical cannabis prescription had a higher probability of high-risk use than those without one. Only 10.7% of prescription holders obtained all their cannabis through a legal medical source; half of all users surveyed still bought from a dealer.

The group says its proposed pilot would involve participants aged 21 and above, with a verified clean bill of mental health, receiving regulated cannabis products alongside regular health monitoring. Every product would carry a verified certificate of analysis and full strain traceability from seed to shelf. Monthly amounts would be capped at 36-40g.

All usage data - anonymous and aggregated - would then be fed directly to legislators, giving governments across the UK and Crown Dependencies a "robust, real-world evidence base on which to build future policy".