cannabisnews.com: Patients To Test Cannabis Medicines Patients To Test Cannabis Medicines Posted by FoM on April 06, 2000 at 18:54:08 PT Reuters Health Source: Fox News Britain's medical authorities have authorised the first clinical trials of cannabis-based medicines for patients with multiple sclerosis and other forms of severe pain, a British drug company said on Thursday. Sufferers from diseases such as MS, which attacks the central nervous system, have been calling for a pain-relieving cannabis medicine for years and many have broken the law by buying the drug from street dealers. The company running the trials, GW Pharmaceuticals, believes them to be the first of their kind in the world. It said if they were successful, the British government had indicated it would change the law banning possession of cannabis, and that prescription drugs could be marketed as early as 2003. Geoffrey Guy, chairman of GW Pharmaceuticals, said in a statement that the trials marked "a highly significant point in the development of cannabis-based medicines.'' They will start shortly at the Pain Relief Clinic at the James Paget Hospital, Great Yarmouth, in eastern England, under the supervision of Dr Willy Notcutt. "Our aim is to test some of the claims which have been made for the medicinal qualities of cannabis in a structured clinical research programme,'' Notcutt said. Patients will take different formulations of cannabis-based medicines using devices that spray them under the tongue and allow them to be absorbed directly into the bloodstream. About 2,000 patients will take part in the trial, details of which can be found on the website: http://www.medicinal-cannabis.org/Guy said there was considerable evidence to suggest that cannabis may have other medical uses in addition to pain relief for MS sufferers. "We are now well on the way to demonstrating this in a controlled clinical research environment,'' he said. GW Pharmaceuticals has been growing cannabis in secure, computer-controlled glasshouses in southern England under a licence from the British Home Office (Interior Ministry). Although the plants are the same as those grown for recreational use — cannabis sativa — the trials are designed to maximise the drug's pain relieving effect rather than to make users so high that they do not care about the pain. London, April 6 (Reuters) For FoxNews.com comments write to: comments newsdigital.comFor Fox News Channel comments write to: comments foxnews.com © News Digital Media 2000. © Reuters Ltd. Related Articles:Cannabis Trials Get Go-Ahead http://www.cannabisnews.com/news/thread5304.shtmlHealth: Cannabis Trials 'Encouraging' http://www.cannabisnews.com/news/thread3683.shtmlCannabis Medicine Seen Ready in Three Years http://www.cannabisnews.com/news/thread3699.shtmlMedical Uses of Cannabis from IDMUhttp://www.idmu.co.uk/medical.htmCannabisNews Articles On GW Pharmaceuticals:http://ussc.alltheweb.com/cgi-bin/search?type=all&query=cannabisnews+GW+Pharmaceuticals http://google.com/search?num=10&q=cannabisnews+GW+Pharmaceuticals++site:www.cannabisnews.com Home Comment Email Register Recent Comments Help Post Comment Name: Optional Password: E-Mail: Subject: Comment: [Please refrain from using profanity in your message] Link URL: Link Title: