Subj: UK: Lords back cannabis use for patients suffering pain



Date: Wednesday November 11, 1998 



Source: The Guardian, UK





Lords back cannabis use for patients suffering pain 

By Sarah Boseley, Health Correspondent



Doctors should be legally allowed to prescribe cannabis for multiple

sclerosis sufferers and other patients who find it helps

relieve pain, says a report from a scientific committee of the House of

Lords, published today. 



The report was hailed as courageous by patients who buy the drug on the

streets and smoke it in fear of the law.



Its findings were backed by pharmacists, but rejected by the British

Medical Association, representing doctors. Government

departments promptly let it be known that they would not lift the ban on a

drug that has not undergone clinical trials.



The House of Lords select committee on Science and Technology accepted the

lack of "rigorous scientific evidence" for the

pain-relieving properties of cannabis. But, said the chairman, Lord Perry

of Walton, they were making their recommendation

"primarily for compassionate reasons".



As a Schedule 1 drug, cannabis is deemed to have no therapeutic value, and

is not available to medicine. The Lords want it

moved to Schedule 2, which would mean pharmacists could supply it and

doctors could prescribe it, although it would not be

licensed.



Lord Perry, one of the majority of well-respected scientists and academics

on the committee, said that "the evidence that I relieves pain, especially

neorological pain, is quite convincing", even though most of it is anecdotal.



Although serious clinical trials will begin in January, Lord Perry said it

would take five years before cannabis or its derivatives would be licensed

as a medicine.



"We consider there is sufficient evidence of medicinal benefit to many

patients to make it unjustifiable and inhumane to make them wait so long,"

he said.



Since the only effective way to deliver cannabis to the brain swiftly is

through smoking it at the moment, the Lords are even prepared to

countenance its prescription for use in a joint, although they urged

research into inhalation and other methods.



They urged the Government to take a lead in Europe and reschedule cannabis

now, but the Department of Health and the Home Office poured cold water on

the idea. "The Government would not be prepared to countenance any movement

to allow prescription before clinical trials and safety tests have been

concluded," said a Home Office spokeswoman. The Department of Health said

that any drug to be used in patient treatment must be licensed by the

Medicines Control Agency "and you can't do that with a Schedule 1 drug".



But the Royal Pharmaceutical Society, which will be running the trials in

January, agrees with the Lords, as long as a standardised cannabis product

can be produced - not a weed which can vary in strength.



Clare Hodges, from the Alliance for Cannabis Therapeutics, who suffers from

multiple sclerosis herself, said she was delighted with the report. "I

think they have shown great compassion and great bravery," she said.



Sir William Asscher, chairman of the BMA's Board of Science and Education,

said he understood the Lords' humanitarian motives but could not support

them. "Crude cannabis is a toxic mixture of more than 60 cannabinoids and

other ingredients," he said.