900 IN TRIALS TO TEST CLAIM THAT CANNABIS HAS MEDICAL BENEFITS

The legalisation of cannabis moved a step closer yesterday as doctors
announced details of the first medical trials for the drug.

Over the next three years, 900 sufferers of multiple sclerosis and
post-operative pain will be given regular doses of cannabis through an
inhaler or as a pill.

If the drug is shown to ease the volunteers' symptoms without causing side
effects, doctors could be prescribing cannabis pills to some of Britain's
85,000 MS sufferers within five years.

The move to legalise cannabis for medical treatment was welcomed by
patients, who claim thousands take the drug illegally to ease the symptoms
of MS.

One drug company - GW Pharmaceuticals - has already been granted Home
Office permission to grow cannabis for medical purposes.

Its first crop of 5000 plants was sown last August in a secret greenhouse
in the south of England and is now ready for harvest.

The company will eventually grow 20,000 plants at the site, which is being
guarded round the clock. The plant - a member of the hemp family -
contains chemicals which can numb pain, easing the aches and spasms
associated with MS. Cannabis is also used by some epilepsy sufferers.

The 8 foot-tall plants will be chopped off just above the stem, hung to dry
and then ground up.

For the tests, which could begin within a few months, the powder will be
made into capsules, or given to patients using an inhaler.

Professor Tony Moffat, chief scientist at the Royal Pharmaceutical Society,
believes the trials will prove cannabis has medical benefits.

"Although trials into the therapeutic use of cannabis and cannabinoids -
the active chemicals in cannabis - have taken place in the past, they have
never been accepted by the World Health Organisation as proof," he said.

He aid a sufficient number of patients would participate in the
scientifically-based trials to determine cannabinoid effectiveness for the
first time.

Some of the volunteers - made up of 600 with MS and 400 suffering from
post-operative pain - will take cannabis oil, while others will be given a
placebo.

Their health will be studied for up to two years by researchers led by
experts at Imperial College, London.

If the test results are accepted by the World Health Organisation, it would
pave the way for the Government to reclassify cannabis, making it legal
when prescribed by doctors but illegal for recreational use.

A recent House of Lords Science and Technology Committee report backed the
medical use of cannabis, a Class B drug.

The British Medical Association has also supported calls for the drug to be
put through clinical trials and made available on prescription.

Writer Sue Arnold, 56, uses cannabis to relieve a hereditary eye condition
that has left her almost completely blind.

She said a pill version of the drug could help thousands.

"For me it is beneficial," she told the BBC yesterday. "For MS sufferers
it is beneficial, so why not if it does relieve pain and spasms? As soon as
you take a joint they go and you feel better and you are guaranteed a good
night's sleep."

The Multiple Sclerosis Society which has called for clinical trials,
welcomed yesterday's launch of their details.

British doctors were allowed to prescribe cannabis until 1973, when it was
removed from a list of prescription drugs that still includes heroin and
morphine.