DUTCH MAKE POT A PRESCRIPTION DRUG

Pharmacies To Sell Medical Marijuana To The Chronically Ill In
'Historic Step'

AMSTERDAM -- The Netherlands this week will become the first country
to make cannabis available as a prescription drug, allowing pharmacies
to sell it to chronically ill patients, a top Dutch health official
said yesterday.

The Dutch government has given the country's 1,650 pharmacies the
green light to sell cannabis to people who have cancer, HIV, multiple
sclerosis and Tourette's syndrome in a ground-breaking acceptance of
the drug's medicinal use.

"It's a historic step. What is unique is that we are making it
available on a prescription-only basis through pharmacies," said
Willem Scholten, head of the office of medicinal cannabis at the Dutch
Health Ministry.

The Netherlands, where prostitution and the sale of cannabis in coffee
shops are regulated by the government, has a history of pioneering
social reforms.

It was also the first country to legalize euthanasia.

The government, which recognized that many chronically ill people were
already buying cannabis from coffee shops, said it should be
prescribed by doctors only when conventional treatments have been
exhausted or if other drugs have side effects.

Two Dutch companies have been given licences to grow special strains
of cannabis in laboratory-style conditions to sell to the Health
Ministry, which in turn packages and labels the drug in small tubs to
supply to pharmacies.

The Health Ministry recommends that patients use tea to dilute the
cannabis, which will come in the form of dried flowers from the hemp
plant rather than its hashish resin.

As well as pharmacies, 80 hospitals and 400 doctors will be allowed to
dispense five-gram doses of medical marijuana for 44 euros ($67) a tub
and more potent Bedrocan at 50 euros.

The government will start distributing to pharmacies
today.

Dutch doctors will be allowed to prescribe the drug to treat chronic
pain, nausea and loss of appetite in cancer and HIV patients, to
alleviate MS sufferers' spasm pains and reduce physical or verbal tics
in people suffering from Tourette's.

The ministry estimates that as many as 7,000 people in the Netherlands
have used cannabis for medical reasons, buying it in coffee shops.

It said that figure could more than double once it is available from
pharmacies in pure medical form.

Cannabis was used as a Chinese herbal remedy around 5,000 years ago,
while Britain's Queen Victoria is said to have taken cannabis tincture
for menstrual pains.

Canada has granted hundreds of seriously ill patients a dispensation
from criminal law to buy the drug after a plan for the government to
grow medical marijuana was put on hold. The United States upheld a
federal ban on medical marijuana in 2001.

Critics argue the drug has not passed sufficient scientific scrutiny
at a time when researchers are trying to determine whether it confers
the medical benefits many users claim.

Some doctors say it increases the risk of depression and
schizophrenia.

"It's the first time it has ever been done in the world. The Dutch are
pretty compassionate and tolerant," said James Burton, director of the
Institute of Medical Marijuana, one of the two companies licensed to
grow the drug for medical use in the Netherlands.

"No one would say that a dying patient or someone in a wheelchair
should not take cannabis to alleviate pain."