I n 2022, a prodigiously talented young artist named Louis Petit was preparing to return to the UK, having been effectively exiled in the Netherlands as a teenager so he could access the medical cannabis he needed to control his epilepsy. Six years earlier, Louis, then 12, had been diagnosed with a rare form of the neurological disease when medical cannabis was still illegal in the UK.

But in Rotterdam, where it was legal, doctors helped him discover that a medical cannabis oil called Bedrolite, in combination with the right mix of anti-epileptic treatment, could slow and eventually stop his seizures. This was something his neurologists in the UK had previously considered impossible.

By the time Louis won a place at City and Guilds of London Art School in 2022, the UK government had legalised medicinal cannabis, pressed by parents needing the drug to treat their epileptic children – most notably Charlotte Caldwell and Hannah Deacon .

Louis assumed his troubles were behind him.…