STRAW'S CHALLENGE OVER CANNABIS DRUGS

Cannabis-based drugs for sufferers of diseases such as multiple sclerosis
or cancer are likely to be legally available within a few years, a senior
adviser to the British Medical Association said last night.

The claim by Dr Bill O'Neill, the BMA's science and research adviser,
followed a challenge by Jack Straw to drug companies and pressure groups to
prove cannabis has medicinal benefits and is safe.

The Home Secretary, revealed on Friday as the Cabinet minister whose son
has been accused of dealing cannabis, said in a radio interview on Saturday
that he would rethink his hard line on the issue if such proof could be
found.

While most experts agree there is still a need for more research, sufferers
from MS say cannabis eases chronic pain while cancer patients have argued
that it helps suppress the nausea associated with chemotherapy.

With 17 research projects on the medicinal uses of cannabis derivatives
currently licensed by the government, an application to the Medicines
Control Agency to market such a product was likely to be put forward, Dr
O'Neill said.

"If they found and could show that there were specific benefits, that it
was more effective or had fewer side effects, then it is likely that there
would be licences granted," he said.

The drugs concerned would be based on constituent parts of cannabis called
cannabinoids, rather than on the whole drug. Dr O'Neill said the BMA was
concerned that patients smoking cannabis could suffer both short- and
long-term side effects.

Most of the projects are based in universities, though some are believed to
have been set up in partnership with pharmaceutical companies.

In fact one drug, Nabilone, is already licensed as a nausea-suppressant for
cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy, but it is not widely used because
it is not thought to be as effective as other treatments.

In a separate development last night Brian Sedgemore, the Labour MP for
Hackney South and Shoreditch, attacked the handling of the Straw case by
the Attorney General, John Morris.

In a statement to his constituency committee he said that Mr Morris would
never have sought an injunction to prevent the naming of a juvenile, as he
did in this case, if that juvenile had been an ordinary teenager.

"He is a government lawyer but in this case he has acted on behalf not of
the Government but on behalf of the son of a cabinet minister.

"That seems to me to be both a wanton waste of public funds and also an
abuse of power involving a possible conflict of interest," he said.