LABOUR MPS SUPPORT MEDICINAL CANNABIS USE

Two MPs today backed calls to legalise cannabis for medicinal use,
saying it would offer relief to thousands of sick and elderly people
suffering from chronic pain.

The Labour MPs Paul Flynn and Brian Iddon were supporting a rally
today in Parliament Square by the Cannabis Education Trust to raise
awareness of the problems faced by medicinal cannabis users.

Mr Flynn, who has campaigned for the legalisation of the drug for
medical purposes for 12 years, said he planned to reintroduce his
private member's bill, first presented to parliament in 2001, to
prevent the prosecution of chronically ill people.

"People around the world have testified in their thousands about the
benefits of taking cannabis to relieve chronic pain," he said. "But
because of our hang-up in this country with recreational use of the
drug, we've condemned otherwise law-abiding citizens to risk jail."

He said there had been legal cases in which juries had let off people
who said they were using cannabis medicinally.

"We must test the waters again. The law is an ass. Judges have called
for parliament to revisit the issue."

Mr Flynn blamed the political parties' fear of being painted as weak
on law and order for the failure to legalise cannabis for medicinal
use.

"We had a bill last year that wasn't opposed by anybody to reclassify
magic mushrooms as a class A drug - the same level as heroin, which is
stupid because they're not at all that dangerous."

Many people with multiple sclerosis have used cannabis illegally to
relieve their symptoms, including spasticity - muscle tightness and
stiffness - and nerve pain. An estimated 85,000 people in Britain
suffer from the disease.

Mr Iddon, chairman of the all-party parliamentary drugs misuse group,
favours legalising cannabis for medicinal and recreational use,
provided that in the latter case it is sold with clear health warnings.

The MP, a former chemistry lecturer, said it was "very wrong" that
chronically sick patients had to choose between living in severe pain
or risk themselves or one of their relatives being sent to prison for
buying cannabis or growing it for medicinal use.

He said most medicinal cannabis campaigners were "normal people" and
did not fit the "loony cannabis smoker" stereotype.

Earlier today, campaigners delivered a petition to Downing Street
calling for an end to the prosecution of medicinal cannabis users.

Adam Slade, who suffers from chronic pain as a result of a congenital
condition, said the current law on medicinal cannabis use put him in
"an awkward position".

Mr Slade, who found standard painkillers ineffective at relieving his
pain, said: "Cannabis improves my quality of life but because it's
illegal it doesn't improve my quality of characterisation."

As well as decriminalising such use of the drug, the campaigners want
a pain-relieving cannabis mouth spray to be made available on the NHS
and cannabis clinics opened to provide patients with pain relief.

The mouthspray, Sativex, is already on sale in Canada to treat nerve
pain but the company is facing a longer wait than expected for
approval in Britain. Regulators in this country asked for additional
data from the company last June.

Andrew Cornwall, coordinator of the Cannabis Education Trust, said the
status of medicinal cannabis was a grey area of the law that needed
clearing up.

"The needs of medicinal cannabis users are being neglected," Mr
Cornwall, a lawyer, said. "There's no legal medicinal cannabis yet
available in this country but many would argue that it was a medical
necessity to provide the drug to chronically sick people to relieve
their symptoms."