PROSECUTORS TAKE A TOUGH LINE ON CANNABIS SUPPLIED TO RELIEVE PAIN

Up To 30% of MS Sufferers Estimated To Use Drug . Four Linked To
Support Groups Face Charges

Prosecutors are taking a firm line on the supply of cannabis for pain
relief to people with chronically painful conditions such as multiple
sclerosis, despite the downgrading of the drug from class B to class
C.

Two crown court trials, one starting this week and one next week, will
accuse four individuals of supplying illegal drugs through the
organisations Bud Buddies and THCforMS (Therapeutic Help from Cannabis
for Multiple Sclerosis).

THCforMS says on its website that it has supplied 33,000 bars of
cannabis chocolate to bona fide MS sufferers over the last five years.
Mark Gibson, Lezley Gibson and Marcus Davies of THCforMS face a charge
of conspiracy to supply cannabis in a trial that begins next Wednesday
at Carlisle crown court.

Bud Buddies offered a number of cannabis preparations including
cannabis cream for topical application to anyone with a proven medical
need.

Its founder, Jeffrey Ditchfield, faces nine charges of cultivation and
supply of cannabis, including a charge of supplying a cannabis plant
received by John Reid, now home secretary, in November 2005. His trial
starts on July 24 at Mold crown court. All four face maximum sentences
of 14 years in prison.

Estimates suggest that between 10% and 30% of MS sufferers in Europe
use cannabis to alleviate the pain and distressing symptoms of the
disease.

Many say it alleviates their symptoms where ordinary prescription
drugs have failed. Few medicines are effective for treating MS, which
affects around 85,000 people in the UK.

MS patients say the prosecutions, if successful, will close down this
route to help, while the government drags its heels on licensing a
cannabis-based drug.

Sativex, a cannabis-derived medicine which can be sprayed under the
tongue, has been available in Canada since 2001. In March 2003, GW
Pharmaceuticals submitted a product licence application for Sativex to
the UK Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA).

But despite evidence in small-scale clinical trials that the cannabis
derivative THC relieves pain, no licence has been forthcoming. A
three-year trial to test whether cannabis derivatives slow the
progress of MS as well as alleviating symptoms is just getting under
way.

The Home Office announced last November that the drug could be
imported and prescribed by doctors on a "named patient" basis while
still unlicensed but few patients who have asked for it have been able
to get it, according to a survey by Disability Now.

A cannabis-using MS sufferer who asked not to be named said her
request to be prescribed Sativex had been turned down. "I find it
inconceivable that the CPS sees these prosecutions as in the public
interest when there is still no legal way for the people who are
helped by cannabis to obtain and use it," she added.

The British Medical Association said in a 1997 report: "While research
is under way the police, the courts and prosecuting authorities should
be aware of the medicinal reasons for the unlawful use of cannabis by
those suffering from certain medical conditions for whom other drugs
have proved ineffective."

But the Crown Prosecution Service has continued to prosecute both
users and suppliers of cannabis for medicinal purposes. Some have been
convicted. But others were found not guilty after successfully raising
the defence of "necessity", which allows an illegal act to avert a
greater harm - in their cases, severe pain.

Those acquitted included a man with spinal injuries who set up a
medical marijuana cooperative, and a doctor who supplied her daughter,
whose illness was not specified.

But the appeal court closed off the defence of necessity last year,
ruling in six test cases that it did not apply to the use of cannabis
to relieve chronic pain.