cannabisnews.com: 900 in Trial to Test Cannabis as Medicine!





900 in Trial to Test Cannabis as Medicine!
Posted by FoM on January 14, 1999 at 09:45:48 PT

The legalisation of cannabis moved a step closer yesterday as doctorsannounced details of the first medical trials for the drug.Over the next three years, 900 sufferers of multiple sclerosis andpost-operative pain will be given regular doses of cannabis through aninhaler or as a pill.
If the drug is shown to ease the volunteers' symptoms without causingsideeffects, doctors could be prescribing cannabis pills to some ofBritain's85,000 MS sufferers within five years.The move to legalise cannabis for medical treatment was welcomed bypatients, who claim thousands take the drug illegally to ease thesymptomsof MS.One drug company - GW Pharmaceuticals - has already been granted HomeOfficepermission to grow cannabis for medical purposes.Its first crop of 5000 plants was sown last August in a secretgreenhouse inthe south of England and is now ready for harvest.The company will eventually grow 20,000 plants at the site, which isbeingguarded round the clock. The plant - a member of the hemp family -containschemicals which can numb pain, easing the aches and spasms associatedwithMS. Cannabis is also used by some epilepsy sufferers.The 8 foot-tall plants will be chopped off just above the stem, hung todryand then ground up.For the tests, which could begin within a few months, the powder will bemade into capsules, or given to patients using an inhaler.Professor Tony Moffat, chief scientist at the Royal PharmaceuticalSociety,believes the trials will prove cannabis has medical benefits."Although trials into the therapeutic use of cannabis and cannabinoids- theactive chemicals in cannabis - have taken place in the past, they haveneverbeen accepted by the World Health Organisation as proof," he said.He aid a sufficient number of patients would participate in thescientifically-based trials to determine cannabinoid effectiveness forthefirst time.Some of the volunteers - made up of 600 with MS and 400 suffering frompost-operative pain - will take cannabis oil, while others will begiven aplacebo.Their health will be studied for up to two years by researchers led byexperts at Imperial College, London.If the test results are accepted by the World Health Organisation, itwouldpave the way for the Government to reclassify cannabis, making it legalwhenprescribed by doctors but illegal for recreational use.A recent House of Lords Science and Technology Committee report backedthemedical use of cannabis, a Class B drug.The British Medical Association has also supported calls for the drugto beput through clinical trials and made available on prescription.Writer Sue Arnold, 56, uses cannabis to relieve a hereditary eyeconditionthat has left her almost completely blind.She said a pill version of the drug could help thousands."For me it is beneficial," she told the BBC yesterday. "For MSsufferers itis beneficial, so why not if it does relieve pain and spasms? As soonasyou take a joint they go and you feel better and you are guaranteed agoodnight's sleep."The Multiple Sclerosis Society which has called for clinical trials,welcomed yesterday's launch of their details.British doctors were allowed to prescribe cannabis until 1973, when itwasremoved from a list of prescription drugs that still includes heroin andmorphine.
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