CANNABIS PILLS

The case for returning the law to 1973

A woman, crippled by multiple sclerosis, is in agony. She tries a number of
drugs, yet finds only one that eases the pain: cannabis. So the woman's
husband, desperate to lessen his wife's suffering, grows it himself. The
police hear reports of strange plants seen growing in the couple's garden,
and pay them a visit. The husband is arrested. The wife loses her
painkiller.

It became illegal to use cannabis for medical purposes in 1973. For the
preceding two millennia, it had been used as a herbal remedy, the earliest
known reference being Assyrian tablets of the 7th century BC. But, after a
decade of soaring drug abuse, the Medicines Control Agency found there was
"insufficient evidence" to support cannabis's medical use. Declared a
Schedule One drug, its use was banned "except for scientific and very
limited medical purposes". Cocaine, morphine, heroin, amphetamines and
pethidine were listed under Schedule Two, permitting their prescription to
named patients.

Earlier this year, the Government issued a licence for a British company to
investigate the uses of cannabis as a medicine. Although its trials have yet
to begin, the House of Lords Science and Technology Committee believes the
law should be changed immediately. After a lengthy inquiry, the committee
concluded that cannabis "almost certainly does have genuine medical
applications", and that the Government should act now to allow doctors to
give cannabis to named patients, before clinical trials have been completed.
They justify their haste on compassionate grounds: why delay and prolong
people's agony, when so much anecdotal evidence suggests cannabis can
alleviate pain?

The committee speaks with authority. Chaired by a pharmacologist, its
members include a Nobel prizewinning chemist and a former president of the
General Medicine Council. Yet neither the Government, nor the British
Medical Association, is persuaded. Cannabis is a toxic mixture, containing
over 60 cannabinoids and other ingredients. Giving patients impure, crude
cannabis would be similar to administering opium, instead of its derivative,
morphine. Allowing doctors to prescribe the drug now, before trials show
which cannabinoids are therapeutic and which are harmful, would put patients
at risk and could undermine the development of a drug based on scientific
research.

Such a reaction may appear harsh. Many Britons would agree with the
inhabitants of Alaska, Arizona, California, Nevada, Oregon and Washington,
who voted to allow cannabis to be given to patients with severe or terminal
illnesses. If the results of the research do not question the select
committee's report, the Government should not hestitate to allow doctors to
prescribe effective derivatives of cannabis to named patients. Until then,
anyone found taking the drug for proven medical reasons should be treated
with the compassion they deserve.

Checked-by: Don Beck