CARR WANTS CANNABIS TRIAL APPROVED

NSW Premier Bob Carr urged Prime Minister John Howard to approve a trial to
use cannabis as a medicinal treatment for people suffering acute pain.

Mr Carr has written to Mr Howard seeking his help in setting up the trial
involving HIV, cancer and multiple sclerosis patients.

Without federal approval, the trial could not proceed because it would be
illegal to import the banned drug.

"You need the Commonwealth to approve its importation and you need the
Commonwealth to check it off under the therapeutic drugs administration,"
Mr Carr told the Nine Network.

He said the NSW government had no intention of decriminalising cannabis but
it did not want people suffering acute pain to resort to illegal activity.

"We don't want a system where someone suffering the racking pain of cancer
treatment or HIV treatment or MS is growing it in their backyard or buying
it on the black market," Mr Carr said.

"That's why we want a better approach, we want to be able to talk it
through with the prime minister.

"Basically our thinking is in line with his."

In May last year, Mr Howard said he would support a trial to allow cannabis
use for pain relief in the chronically ill as long as the drug was prescribed.

Mr Carr said his government had spoken with Britain about an inhaler spray
but the product would not be available for at least two years.

"Meanwhile, we've got people in hospital wards, struggling with these
diseases in their own homes, hoping for a way out, hoping for another
option," he said.

"We want to be able to import a cannabis product available at the present
time in Canada because Canada, like the Netherlands, and like eight
American states, has a system that allows compassionate cannabis . that
enables people living with pain, living with acute pain, to have another
option."