DRUG MAKER GROWS POT - FOR MEDICINE

LONDON - Many new drugs are researched and developed in secrecy, but few
grow in a greenhouse protected by electric fences and 24-hour guards.

For GW Pharmaceuticals Ltd., different rules apply. The British drug maker
is growing 30,000 marijuana plants with an eye toward a potential $700
million annual market for easing such ailments as glaucoma and nausea. The
company says it's the only one in the world producing pharmaceutical-grade
cannabis for clinical use.

"It's a medicine. About four or five puffs will ease the spasms in my legs
within minutes," says wheelchair-bound Bill Thornton-Smith, 43, who takes
the drug for his multiple sclerosis. "If I wanted to get high, I would just
pop down the shop and get a bottle of wine."

Recognizing that doctors are unlikely to prescribe a medicine that's
smoked, GW has developed a spray. A device delivers the drug under the
tongue and records the frequency and size of the doses for doctors, said
Justin Gover, GW's managing director.

The closely held company is testing marijuana specially cultivated at its
secret location on 20 MS patients. Next year, GW plans tests in more than
100 people, each of whom must be licensed by the United Kingdom's Home
Office. If the studies are successful, GW intends to market the drug for
MS, nausea and arthritis by 2003.

Thornton-Smith and about 85,000 others in Britain have MS, a debilitating
disease of the central nervous system that can cause muscle spasms and
paralysis. About 4 percent, or 3,400, of them, smoke pot as medical
therapy, according to a report by the House of Lords.

Marijuana may also alleviate phantom limb, a condition in which amputees
sense pain where an arm or leg used to be, Gover said.

The British government has said if the benefits of marijuana can be
scientifically proven, it would propose an amendment to The Misuse of Drugs
Act to allow its use.

Still, GW faces a number of obstacles. Only about one of five drug
compounds that enter clinical testing makes it to the market. And the
benefits of marijuana, which remains illegal in much of the world, are
hotly disputed.

"While we hear a lot about people who say cannabis has helped them, we hear
a lot less about the people who say it hasn't," said David Harrison, a
spokesman for the Multiple Sclerosis Society, which seeks more research on
the drug. "It has had quite nasty effects on their sense of balance and
nervous systems."