BLAIR AGREES TO LEGALISE CANNABIS FOR MEDICAL USE

The Government is to legalise the use of cannabis for medicinal purposes in
a significant change to its hardline policy on drugs.

The highly controversial move represents a compromise between Mo Mowlam, the
Cabinet Office Minister, who wanted a government-ordered review of whether
cannabis should be decriminalised, and Tony Blair and Jack Straw, the Home
Secretary, who both adamantly opposed any relaxation of the law.

What has now been agreed is to allow people suffering from multiple
sclerosis (MS), and other conditions which bring severe pain, to use
cannabis legally. Ms Mowlam, who took over responsibility for drugs
last October, has failed in an attempt to persuade Mr Blair to set up a
Royal Commission to review the 1971 Misuse of Drugs Act, which critics claim
is out of date.

Such a review could have paved the way for possessing cannabis for personal
use to be decriminalised. But Mr Blair and Mr Straw have rejected the idea,
arguing that any weakening of the government stance could encourage young
people to experiment with soft drugs and then, they believe, to move on to
hard drugs.

But senior government sources told The Independent yesterday that Ms Mowlam
will win her battle to allow cannabis to be used legally for therapeutic
purposes. "It is a trade-off," a Home Office source said. "Mo will get the
OK for medicinal use but she won't get anything else."

The final go-ahead will come after human trials which are expected to
confirm that cannabis can have medical benefits. Research using mice at
University College London found that cannabis can ease some of the painful
symptoms of multiple sclerosis and prevent muscle aches and tremors.

The British Medical Association and a House of Lords select committee have
backed human trials, and further pressure for a relaxation of the law for
therapeutic use may come next Tuesday when the Police Foundation will
publish the results of a two-year study into the 1971 Misuse of Drugs Act.

The independent inquiry, which enjoys semi-official status at the Home
Office, is expected to recommend that people should no longer be jailed for
possessing cannabis for their own use and that ecstasy should be downgraded
from its present status as a Class A drug alongside heroin.

The Prime Minister and the Home Secretary are thought unlikely to support
these two proposals. Close allies say Mr Blair's attitude to the drugs
menace has hardened in recent weeks after meeting police chiefs at Downing
Street. "He sees the threat to children and thinks of his own kids," one
aide said. Ministers say no decision has been made on how the law should be
relaxed for medicinal use. Options include allowing doctors to prescribe
cannabis on a "named patient" basis and letting sufferers grow or buy the
drug for their own exclusive use with the written support of their doctor.

Yesterday four Labour MPs tabled a Commons motion urged the Government to
allow the therapeutic use of cannabis, speed up the human trials and order
the police not to prosecute people with MS, Aids, arthritis and the relief
of severe pain who use the drug with their doctor's permission.

They said sufferers should not be "forced on to the streets to purchase
illegal drugs or face an omnipresent threat of prosecution which puts the
sick and dying on the front line of the war on drugs".

The MPs want people to be allowed to use raw cannabis until a drug using its
active chemicals, called cannabinoids, has been developed.

But the BMA has reservations about raw cannabis because some of its
properties are harmful. Tar levels are three times the level of cigarettes,
and new research suggests that smoking four joints causes
as much lung damage as 20 cigarettes.

The move to allow medicinal use would be seen by campaigners for
decriminalisation a small first step towards their goal - despite Mr Blair
implacable opposition to any further softening.

Ms Mowlam, who last month admitted smoking marijuana as a student in the
Seventies, has backed calls by Keith Hellawell, the Government's anti-drugs
co-ordinator, for the police to concentrate their efforts on the war against
hard drugs such as heroin and cocaine. Her comments are said to have gone
down badly in Downing Street and the Home Office.