MPS SET TO BACK RELAXATION OF DRUG LAWS

AN influential group of MPs will call for the decriminalisation of cannabis
and the downgrading of ecstasy in an authoritative report to be published
later this year, it was reported yesterday.

MPs on the Commons home affairs select committee have carried out a
seven-month investigation, at Downing Street's request, into the drug laws.

It is understood the report will call for ecstasy to be downgraded from a
class A to a class B drug, for the wider prescription of heroin on the NHS
to addicts and for an end to prosecutions for possession of cannabis. The
report came as the Department of Health publishes a consultation paper on
cannabis derivatives being prescribed on the NHS to multiple sclerosis
sufferers.

The government today will ask its medicines watchdog, the National
Institute of Clinical Excellence, to issue consultative guidelines for
doctors on prescribing two cannabis derivatives - one called dronabinol,
which will be available in capsule form, and another cannabis-based
medicinal extract spray.

Both products are still undergoing trials and are unlikely to be licensed
for use until 2004.

Alistair Ramsay, director of Scotland Against Drugs, said the Home Office
committee was effectively concerned with England and took evidence from
only two groups in Scotland. He said there would have to be much more
thorough research before any changes were made to the UK-wide drug legislation.

"There's a much more Calvinistic view of drugs in Scotland and consequently
similar soundings would have to be taken before any changes were made," he
said. "As far as I'm aware, there's no appetite among the public in
Scotland for a change in the law. The general view is that there's quite
enough damage done by legal drugs in Scotland without adding to the
complications by decriminalising another mood-altering substance."

Regarding the use of cannabis derivatives for medicinal purposes, Mr Ramsay
said he was supportive of a non-smokable form of cannabinoids being
prescribed to a patient for whom there is no better pain relief.

Lord Philip Hunt, the health minister, said: "This programme . . . contains
the first assessment of medicines for pain relief in multiple sclerosis
which use cannabis derivatives."