YES, I GET STONED WHEN I SMOKE IT.

But It Also Improves My Eyesight

WHEN I can get hold of it, that is, when my teenage children or their
friends can get hold of it for me - I smoke dope. The effect is two-fold:
the first, predictably, is that I get stoned which is OK if mindless
rapture is all I'm after. I'm not. The second effect, and the main reason
that I smoke cannabis, is that it improves my eyesight, sometimes so
dramatically that I feel I could easily take part in precision bombing
raids over the Andes at night (but that, of course, is because I'm stoned.)

It was about three years ago over supper with friends in Batterse that I
discovered the power of pot. As a student I smoked the odd spliff but my
eyesight wasn't that bad in those days (I'm now registered blind) I didn't
appreciate its potential ophthalmic benefits.

I have a hereditary condition reinvites pigmentosa (RP) which effects
sufferers in various ways. My sister started losing her eyesight when she
was six and was blind by the time she was 12. Most people with RP have
tunnel vision which hampers their mobility but they can still manage to do
close work. My condition is different. I have patches in my retina which
mean I can see the vague shape of things but nothing in detail. In other
words, I'm mobile but I can't read. I can get myself on a plane to New
York but I can't fill in my landing forms. It could be worse.

On the other hand it can be a whole lot better if and when I can lay my
hands on the specific type of cannabis that Battersea guest handed round
the table when the apple crumble had been cleared away. Up 'till then, I
was unable to see whether the dish in front of me contained black olives or
cigarette butts. Then I took a drag of the proffered spliff and wham -
everything changed. It was as if someone had switched on an arc light.

For the first time that evening I registered that the man with the spliff
had deadlocks and two small gold studs in his left ear. More than that, I
could see the intricate embroidery on his denim jacket and the flowered
cups hanging on the dresser behind him. It was extraordinary and I should
have said so had I been in a position to say anything. I wasn't. I was
legless.

When I told my consultant at Moorfields Eye Hospital about my miracle cure,
he was unimpressed. Doctors in the US, he said, have been prescribing
cannabis to their glaucoma patients for years, and fishermen in Jamaica
smoke ganja to improve their night vision.

Since then I have been in regular communication with Lester Grinspoon,
professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and the author of a
respected tome, Marijuana Reconsidered, which explains the many ways in
which marijuana helps those suffering from multiple sclerosis, arthritis,
glaucoma and the side-effects of Aids drugs.

Professor Grinspoon reckons that just as we regard penicillin as the super
drug of the Forties, future generations will associate the first decade of
this century with the increasing use of the new wonder drug, marijuana.

Legalising its use for medical purposes will come as welcome news to all
those who currently run the risk of prosecution because they employ it to
relieve their medical symptoms.

From a personal point of view it's not quite so simple. For a start, the
only type of cannabis that switches on the lights for me is "skunk", a
combination of three varieties of marijuana - Himalayan, Columbian and
Mexican - which is grown hydroponically under laboratory conditions and
costs a fortune.

Furthermore, there are different varieties of skunk. In Amsterdam they give
prizes every year for the best skunk just ast hey give prizes for roses at
the Vhelsea Flower Show. Northern Lights, the kind I tried, won the top
skunk prize in Amsterdam in 1988, followed by Snow White which I also tried
with less effect.

The problem is that until medical research can isolate the particular
cannabinoid - there are 60 - that enables me to see from the 59 that just
make me stoned, I'm not that much better off. What's the point of being
able to read if I'm so caned I don't know what I'm reading? I want to read
the subtitles in foreign films and most cinemas are non-smoking.

My kind of marijuana needs a lot of research and that costs money. In his
Budget speech on Tuesday, the Chancellor pledged an additional 5 billion
pounds to prop up the NHS over the next year. A few million from that
kitty would help cannabis research or does that sound too much like pot luck?