CANNABIS 'TO BE LEGAL AS PAINKILLER IN TWO YEARS'

CANNABIS will be legalised for medical use within two years because
clinical trials of the drug show it has few side effects, the chief
scientist of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society (RPS) believes.

According to research obtained by The Telegraph, the first trial in
Britain, on six healthy people, concluded that "there were no safety
concerns" about the drug's use.

Last night Professor Tony Moffat said: "I have read sufficient in the
literature about the small trials that people have already done showing
that these are very potent compounds for relaxing muscles, and the
anecdotal evidence from MS sufferers who smoke it saying it is absolutely
wonderful. All the evidence points that way." Once accepted as a medicine,
cannabis would almost certainly become a social drug too, he added.

Prof Moffat said that cannabis need not take the form of a cigarette with
its attendant health risks, and swallowing the drug was not effective as 90
per cent of it was broken down by the liver before having much effect. But
a mouth spray or even a suppository would deliver 50 per cent of the drug
into the user's system. Medicinal cannabis will not give people a
drug-induced "high" but will be used as a painkiller and relaxant.

Alan Milburn, the Health Secretary, and his predecessor Frank Dobson, have
both said the Government would legalise the medical use of cannabis if
trials showed a clear benefit. The debate about legalising cannabis for
medical use was reignited in 1998 when the House of Lords science and
technology committee acknowledged that part of the cannabis plant seemed to
alleviate asthma as effectively as conventional treatments.

The RPS is monitoring two large clinical trials of cannabis: a $400,000
study involving 300 patients to see if cannabis tablets can replace
morphine as a painkiller after surgery, and a $900,000 study of 660
patients with multiple sclerosis. Both are funded by the Medical Research
Council. A commercial drugs firm, GM Pharmaceuticals, has commissioned two
trials of cannabis extracts delivered in a spray squirted under the tongue.
The spray takes effect within two or three minutes, almost as quickly as
cannabis inhaled from a cigarette.

A report on the first phase of GM Pharmaceuticals' trials said that
cannabis was "well-tolerated" by volunteers, and there were "no safety
concerns". The trial volunteers reported feelings of "light-headedness,
awareness of a 'high', mellow or happy mood, relaxation and dizziness or
unsteadiness" at high doses.

The World Health Organisation has promised to transfer cannabis from
schedule one to schedule two of its list of drugs, sanctioning it for
medical use worldwide, if clinical trials show it is useful as a medicine.

Mike Goodman, the director of the drug charity Release, predicted that
cannabis would be decriminalised within five to 10 years and fully
legalised within 15. It would be sold either as resin or grass and
ready-rolled in packets of five or 10 joints with brand names such as
Double Zero, Purple Haze and Northern Lights. Like tar and nicotine in
cigarettes, the amount of cannabinoids would be controlled.