DOSES OF DOPE TO GO ON TRIAL

LONDON - The legalisation of cannabis in Britain moved a step closer
yesterday as doctors announced details of the first medical trials of 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 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 it illegally to ease symptoms of MS.

One drugs company, GW Pharmaceuticals, has been granted Home Office
permission to grow cannabis for medical research. Its first crop of 5000
plants was sown last August in a secret greenhouse in the south of England
and is ready for harvest.

The plant - a member of the hemp family - contains chemicals that can numb
pain, easing aches and spasms associated with MS. It is also used by some
epilepsy sufferers.

Professor Tony Moffat, of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society, believes the
tests will prove the drug has medical benefits.

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.