CANNABIS ON TRIAL

Sir: It is morally wrong to withold proven medical treatment from patients.
The great debate is whether cannabis is proven to be medically useful.

Further clinical trials, which the Government requires, are unnecessary
because if there was a debilitating side-effect then 2000 years of medical
usage would have made it apparent ("Cannabis is 'safer than drinking' ", 13
November). Anecdotal and historic evidence proves the superiority of herbal
cannabis in the treatment of MS, epilepsy and many other diseases.

Cannabis treatment is witheld because the pharmaceutical companies will not
make money from a common plant. If cannabis is God's gift to the sick then
it is our duty to make sure they can legally obtain it.

In the past cannabis has been targeted as a menace and a threat to society;
now the media should champion the cause of those who undergo persecution
because of a quirk in the law.

David Ryan, Keble College, Oxford

Sir: The Government's timid response to the Lords committee recommendation
on medicinal use of cannabis highlights why we have little hope of
reversing the terrible effects of dangerous drugs use.

If the Government is serious about reducing drugs use and the crime it
causes, the campaign needs a dose of radical honesty. All the efforts of
the past 50 years have been based on the demonising of any substance that
isn't legal - hardly the approach to influence young people.

The narcotic debate is still based on the 1920s approach that was based on
grounds of morality and deviance. Even the most dim-witted teenager will
identify that alcohol is easily as culpable on these grounds, yet enjoys
legal and taxable status.

Drugs use has to be tackled primarily on grounds of health risks and should
target those substances that are demonstrably addictive or fatal and are at
least more dangerous that alcohol or tobacco.

If you apply this test to existing proscribed substances many will fail
despite over half a century of effort to link them to the proven effects of
narcotics like heroin and cocaine.

With their big majority, there is no excuse for the Government not to raise
the level of debate on drugs.

Dan Williams, Southend-on-Sea, Essex

Checked-by: Mike Gogulski