UK Man Praised for Helping Thousands Access Medicinal Cannabis Jailed for Four Years

Joel Cunningham, 40, from Leeds, was convicted of seven offences, including possession with intent to supply magic mushrooms and conspiring to supply THC, back in May 2025 and handed an 18-month suspended sentence. 

This sentence was overruled by the Court of Appeal on Tuesday 16 September, after Solicitor General Ellie Reeves referred the case on the grounds that the sentence was too lenient. 

The three judges who heard the appeal agreed and imposed a four-year prison term, with Cunningham ordered to turn himself in to a Leeds police station by 4pm on Wednesday 17.

Police raiding Cunningham’s home in 2021, found multiple cannabis products, including vapes, oils, and creams, as well as around 1.5 kilograms of magic mushrooms worth up to £18,500, £7,748 in cash, luxury watches, and a CS spray canister, the BBC reports. 

Cunningham has always claimed that he was supplying cannabis products to patients with cancer, epilepsy, chronic pain, and other serious health conditions.

The case against him attracted a significant amount of public attention, with over 4,600 people signing a petition in support of his “compassionate work” and “positive impact on the community”. 

The original trial also saw several patients take to the witness stand in his defence to share the impact he had on their lives.

Over 4,000 people have signed a petition in support of Joel Cunningham.

Medical cannabis has been legal in the UK since 2018, with over 60,000 patients prescribed cannabis-based products through private clinics – but many remain unable to access these medicines, and around 1.8 million are thought to be self-medicating with cannabis illegally. 

Cannabis for recreational use remains illegal and a Class B drug, carrying a maximum custodial sentence of up to 14 years for intent to supply. A conviction of intent to supply magic mushrooms – a Class A drug – could carry a maximum sentence of life imprisonment. 

Asking for Cunningham’s sentence to be increased on Tuesday, Reeves said the magic mushrooms conviction should have been treated as the “lead offence” when Cunningham was sentenced, the BBC reported. 

The judges found that while there was no evidence that Cunningham had supplied magic mushrooms previously, “the jury were clearly satisfied that he was planning to do so in the future”, and that the sentence was “unduly lenient”.

Campaigners say the law must “recognise and differentiate” between “harmful drug dealers” and those like Joel, “whose mission is to heal rather than harm”.

In a video to his followers posted on Wednesday, Cunningham said he first discovered the benefits of plant medicines following a “shift in consciousness” in 2015, and later spent time in Nepal, India, and Africa “bettering himself” and “learning about plant medicines and indigenous people’s ways of life”.

He went on to highlight how psilocybin, the psychoactive compound found in magic mushrooms, is now being researched in clinical trials as a potential treatment for depression and other psychiatric conditions. 

In July, Germany introduced the EU’s first compassionate use program for psilocybin-assisted therapy in treatment-resistant depression, while other global jurisdictions have passed laws to legalise psilocybin for medical use.  

Cunningham described it as “hypocrisy at its finest”.

“I did everything openly. I didn’t deny what I was doing, ” he said.

“My view on it was that it’s against our human rights…to deny us these medicines that are known to have therapeutic components which could heal us.”

While Cunningham has openly claimed that cannabis “cures cancer” there is no robust scientific evidence to support this. In the UK, medical cannabis is not prescribed to treat cancer, rather to help manage the symptoms such as pain and anxiety, as well as the side-effects of other treatments such as chemotherapy.