CANNABIS RESEARCH GETS GROWING

A GROUP of patients will be allowed to inhale cannabis fumes next year at
the start of the world's first large-scale study into the drug's medicinal
effects.

The Home Office has licensed GW Pharmaceuticals to grow thousands of potent
cannabis plants for research. About two dozen patients are expected to take
part in an initial trial which will test tolerability and dose levels. The
research is aimed mainly at investigating the potential of cannabis to
relieve pain and muscle spasms. Patients in the pilot study are likely to
suffer from multiple sclerosis, spinal injuries and the "phantom limb" pain
that often follows amputation.

Seeding is about to begin at a UKP4 million greenhouse complex in the South
of England. The Home Office and Special Branch advised on security for the
secret site with up to 20,000 cannabis plants.

The patients will be taking an extract of whole cannabis - not isolated
chemicals - and will take in its vapour through inhalers. Geoffrey Guy,
founder and chairman of GW Pharmaceuticals, said: "Inhaling allows more
rapid absorption of the plant compounds than taking cannabis orally."

Dr Guy, who gave evidence yesterday to the House of Lords Science and
Technology Select Committee, said that the trial patients would not be
getting "high" on cannabis.

The amount of the drug needed to relieve pain or prevent muscle spasms was
below this level. When people experienced a "high" from cannabis they were,
in effect, taking an overdose, he said.

He expected a "flood" of patients volunteering to take part in the trials.
Some would already have experience of cannabis while others would be taking
the drug for the first time.

A recent survey by Disability Now magazine showed that almost 98 per cent
of its readers supported the legalisation of cannabis, and 67 per cent said
that they had taken cannabis for medicinal reasons.