UK CANNABIS TESTS OFFER PAIN SUFFERERS NEW HOPE

LONDON, May 2 (Reuters) - A British drug company said on Wednesday it was a
step closer to launching cannabis-based medicine for patients suffering
multiple sclerosis and other forms of severe pain.

GW Pharmaceuticals said it had obtained encouraging results from the latest
phase of clinical trials and was now extending its programme into Phase III
trials, which involve a wider range of patients in new locations and is the
last hurdle before approval is granted.

The company said it had also obtained regulatory approval to start clinical
trials in Canada.

Sufferers from diseases such as multiple sclerosis, which attacks the
central nervous system, have been calling for a pain-relieving cannabis
medicine for years and many have broken the law by buying the drug from
street dealers.

GW has invested 12 million pounds ($17 million) in its research and hopes
to market its first prescription cannabis-based medicine in 2003.

It will offer patients the pain-relieving benefits of cannabis without what
the company calls "unwanted psychoactive side effects."

Getting "high," as would happen if patients smoked marijuana, does not in
itself offer medical benefits. These are derived from the drug's active
ingredients known as cannabinoids.

GW's trials have involved patients taking cannabis-based medicine by
spraying it under their tongues, which allows it to be absorbed rather than
swallowed.

Dr Geoffrey Guy, chairman of GW Pharmaceuticals, said: "Data from our four
Phase II studies in approximately 70 subjects is positive and encouraging.
Patients are clearly gaining benefit.

"We are seeing a significant improvement in quality of life for sufferers
of a range of medical conditions and look forward to extending the trials
programme."

Results appeared to show significant reduction in pain, muscle spasm and
bladder dysfunction as well as improved neurological function.

Guy said the company had received approval from Canadian health authorities
allowing it to start trials in Canada.

GW Pharmaceuticals Ltd is a private company, set up in 1997, which operates
under licences issued by the British Home Office (interior ministry) to
cultivate, possess and supply cannabis for medical research.

The company has been growing cannabis in secure, computer-controlled
glasshouses in southern England.

The plants are the same as those grown for recreational use but trials are
designed to maximise the drug's analgesic, or pain relieving, effect rather
than to make subjects so high they do not care about the pain.

The company said that if health authorities issued a licence for
cannabis-based medicine, the government had indicated it would be willing
to amend narcotics laws to allow it to be prescribed.