cannabisnews.com: Marijuana For Pain, MS Trials Approved In England 





Marijuana For Pain, MS Trials Approved In England 
Posted by FoM on January 16, 1999 at 09:59:39 PT

 London, England: Two government sanctioned clinical trials on the therapeutic value of Marijuana will begin shortly, the governing body for British pharmacists announced this week. The two protocols seek to determine Marijuana's ability to control muscle spasms in Multiple Sclerosis patients and provide relief to post-operative pain sufferers. 
   "The potential benefits of cannabis are absolutely enormous," said Dr. Geoffrey Guy, who is licensed by the government to grow marijuana for medical research. "We are really only beginning to take the blinkers off that have been on this material for the last 30 years."   The upcoming human trials will adhere to strict guidelines approved Monday by the Royal Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain. The new guidelines will give the results added scientific weight to groups like the World Health Organization, who remain skeptical of marijuana's medical value, a RPS spokesman said.   The first study will involve approximately 600 MS patients. Volunteers will be divided into three groups. The first will receive conventional medication for controlling muscle spasms while a second group will consume standardized doses of marijuana. A third will only receive doses of THC, an active compound in marijuana, to help researchers determine if constituents in marijuana other than THC have medicinal benefit. Patients will likely consume marijuana through a special inhaler designed to administer measured amounts of the drug.   The second series of trials will follow similar guidelines and involve approximately 300 volunteers suffering from acute post-operative pain disorder or cancer.   Researchers said they expect to present their findings within two years. Botanists recently harvested 5,000 marijuana plants from a secret, government farm to supply volunteers with the drug.   Dr. Guy praised the British government's willingness to support medical marijuana research. "We enjoy a very liberal research environment," he said. "Our first objective is to get research done, not to find a thousand reasons to block it."   For more information, please contact either Allen St. Pierre or Paul Armentano of The NORML Foundation   (202) 483-8751.
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