STRAW REJECTS CANNABIS AS A CURE

Home Secretary insists scientists have failed to prove that the drug has
any useful medical role

JACK STRAW declared yesterday that cannabis could be prescribed by doctors
for illnesses, but only if researchers can prove it has beneficial medical
uses.

The Home Secretary, whose son, William, 17, is accused of selling cannabis
to a newspaper reporter, insisted that scientists had failed to prove that
the drug had any useful medical role.

Mr Straw was revealed to England and Wales on Friday as the Cabinet
minister at the centre of a drugs row. After The Scotsman disclosed his
identity, a judge lifted an injunction which banned newspapers in England
from naming him.

Mr Straw has said that the affair served to strengthen his conviction that
soft drugs should not be legalised.

But he told BBC1's Breakfast with Frost: "Heroin on any basis is a worse
drug, a more dangerous drug than cannabis, but heroin in its pharmaceutical
preparation, diamorphine, is available on prescription for people in pain
and it's very widely prescribed.

"So the law does not say that, because a drug is classed as illegal, it
therefore should not be available on prescription. What it does say,
however, is that before drugs are available on prescription they've got to
be properly tested and researched. Now that's happened to a lot of opiates,
heroin and cocaine derivatives.

"So far the medical researchers have not been able to prove, indeed very
few have tried, that there are real beneficial medicinal effects from
cannabis."

Mr Straw again rejected the case for establishing a Royal commission in
order to consider whether soft drugs should be legalised.

Paul Flynn, a Labour back-bencher, claimed there was substantial research
to support the case for prescribing cann-abis to victims of multiple
sclerosis, glaucoma, cerebral palsy, muscle spasm and the effects of
chemotherapy.

He said: "The evidence is there in great abundance, but the Government, and
the Home Office in particular, won't accept it because they believe if they
allowed it to be used it would break down the mythology they have put out
about the dangers of cannabis."

Mr Flynn intends to table a Commons early day motion to test the support
among MPs for a Royal commission.

Alan Beith, the deputy leader of the Liberal Democrats, supported Mr Flynn.

Mr Straw, who chairs a ministerial committee promoting good parenting, said
last month that he approached the subject with humility. He said yesterday:
"I guess I have to show even greater humility in the light of what's
happened."

It emerged that William Straw is unlikely to face suspension or expulsion
from the school he attends in south-west London. But Oxford University's
conditional offer for him to read politics, philosophy and economics could
be under threat.

The Crown Prosecution Service is expected to say today that he should not
be charged in relation to the allegations that he sold cannabis to Dawn
Alford, a Mirror reporter. The Mirror claimed on Christmas Eve that the son
of a Cabinet minister had sold the drug
to Alford in a pub. It did not identify Mr Straw or his son.

The police are understood to have recommended to the CPS that William
should be cautioned or face no action at all.

Philip Barnard, head of Pimlico Comprehensive, told the Mail on Sunday: "My
instinctive, gut reaction is he has suffered enough because of whose son he
is. My instincts are that I will read him the riot act but he will not be
excluded temporarily or
permanently."

A spokesman for Oxford University said that William could lose his place if
convicted of a drug offence.

Meanwhile, Mr Straw intends to change English law to ensure that persistent
young offenders can be named and shamed at 16. English law provides
anonymity to those under 18 who face legal proceedings. Mr Straw wants the
age limit reduced to 16, to bring English law into line with Scots law.