MEDICINAL 'POT' MAY BE ALLOWED

CANNABIS may be available legally for medicinal purposes under a Cabinet
compromise on the Government's policy towards drugs.

The Prime Minister is prepared to agree to change the law to allowing
people suffering from conditions such as multiple sclerosis to use the drug
once human trials confirm that the drug can alleviate their symptoms.

However, he has rejected Mo Mowlam's proposals for a Royal Commission on
drugs, which he feared might pave the way for the general
de-criminalisation of cannabis.

Ms Mowlam, who has admitted that she experimented with the cannabis in the
1960s, wants a full review of the 1971 Misuse of Drugs Act, which critics
say is now out of date.

She has backed calls from Keith Hellawell, the Government's drugs "czar",
for the police to concentrate their efforts on the war against hard drugs
such as cocaine and heroin.

MS sufferers have long argued that smoking and eating cannabis helps to
alleviate their condition and that jailing or fining them is an infringment
of their rights. Research on mice at University College London, has found
that the drug can ease some MS symptoms as well as prevent muscle aches and
tremors.