Why a Motorsports Team Sponsored a Motorsport Team

You might also find it unusual that a medical cannabis not-for-profit has sponsored a 14-year-old racing driver.

Ordinarily, you would be right. But that is exactly what we have done, and for a very good cause.

Thomas Potter is a 14-year-old racing driver competing in the Fiesta Junior Championship, following a successful karting career that included more than 100 race wins and six championships.

However, Thomas Potter Racing is about far more than results on the track.

Thomas has used his growing motorsport platform to support children and adults affected by bullying and poor mental health. His experiences inspired the Words Do Hurt campaign, which has been raising awareness of bullying, mental health and the importance of asking for help since 2020.

Thomas experienced negativity, abuse and hurtful comments while pursuing his motorsport ambitions, including criticism linked to competing on a limited budget. Rather than allowing those experiences to drive him away from the sport he loved, he used them to help others who were going through similar situations.

The campaign carries a simple but powerful message:

That message is displayed through Thomas's racing, campaign vehicles, event appearances and work within the community. The project aims to use motorsport to start conversations in schools, colleges, race paddocks and community spaces about bullying, mental health and kindness.

Thomas also invites people affected by bullying to add their names, or the names of people they want remembered or represented, to his vehicles. In doing so, every name becomes part of the campaign and travels with the team.

The experiences of medical cannabis patients are obviously different from those of a young racing driver facing bullying. However, the central message of the campaign will feel painfully familiar to many people in our community.

Medical cannabis patients know first-hand that words do hurt.

Patients can receive negative comments simply because of the medicine they have been legally prescribed. They may be called drug users, addicts or criminals, even when they are following specialist medical advice and using their treatment responsibly.

A prescription can be dismissed as an excuse. A patient's medical condition can be questioned. The smell of prescribed cannabis flower can cause strangers to make immediate assumptions about somebody's behaviour, character or ability.

PatientsCann UK® exists to challenge those assumptions, provide practical support and ensure patients do not have to face them alone. Our motorsport team carries that mission onto the track by Driving Out Cannabis Stigma, promoting visibility and fair, evidence-based access for legally prescribed patients.

The Words Do Hurt campaign and Driving Out Cannabis Stigma come from different experiences, but they share an important principle:

When we learned more about Thomas, his racing and the purpose behind Words Do Hurt, supporting the campaign felt entirely natural.

This was not about one motorsport team paying to place its logo beside another racing car. It was about two motorsport projects supporting a shared belief that the sport can be used to make people feel seen, represented and less alone.

Sal Aziz, founder of the PatientsCann UK® Motorsports Team and Director of PatientsCann UK®, therefore personally funded a sponsorship position to support Thomas Potter Racing and the Words Do Hurt campaign.

We are absolutely delighted that PatientsCann UK® Motorsports Team and Driving Out Cannabis Stigma appears on the team's partners banner. The words "Cannabis Patients" have been added to the TPOT, ensuring that our community is represented alongside others who have been affected by bullying, hurtful language and stigma.

Those two words represent thousands of people.

They represent patients who have been judged because of a smell. They represent people who have hidden their medication because they feared how others might react. They represent patients who have been excluded from work, volunteering, sport or ordinary public life because somebody saw the word "cannabis" and stopped seeing the person.

Having "Cannabis Patients" written on the TPOT is a small but meaningful act of visibility. It says that our community belongs within this conversation and that stigma against patients should never be dismissed as harmless banter.

A racing car usually carries the names of businesses, products and commercial partners. Thomas Potter Racing demonstrates that it can carry something more.

It can carry people's stories. It can carry the names of those who have been hurt. And it can carry a message into paddocks and communities that might otherwise never hear it.

The Words Do Hurt campaign uses motorsport as a starting point for conversations about bullying and mental health, and Thomas's story encourages young people to ask for help and continue pursuing their ambitions.

That is something PatientsCann UK® is proud to stand beside.

We know from our own work that visibility matters. When people only encounter medical cannabis through stereotypes, those stereotypes go unchallenged. When they meet patients, hear their experiences and understand why they are prescribed their treatment, attitudes can begin to change.

The same principle applies to bullying.

We are incredibly proud to support Thomas Potter Racing and the Words Do Hurt campaign.

Thomas has already achieved an enormous amount at only 14 years old, both as a racing driver and as somebody willing to use his platform to help others. His journey is a reminder that motorsport can be more than competition. It can build communities, start difficult conversations and give people hope. We wish Thomas and the entire Thomas Potter Racing team the very best with his racing career and this important cause.