Subj: UK: Sco: Health use of hashish backed



Date: 3 Nov 1999



Source: The Herald (UK)





Health use of hashish backed

ROSEMARY FREE 



SCOTTISH Tory leader David McLetchie yesterday backed the 

use of cannabis in medicine but fell short of supporting the 

legalisation of the drug for recreational use.



Mr McLetchie, who nursed his first wife when she was dying 

of cancer, emphasised that the drug should only be available 

on prescription when it was considered by the doctor as the 

most appropriate form of pain relief.



A spokesman for the Scottish Conservative Party said: "For 

someone who has been through such a harrowing experience, he 

more than most can recognise the circumstances of someone in 

grotesque pain.



"As far as he is concerned, the doctor knows best. If a 

doctor's professional opinion is that a patient could find 

relief from pain or assistance with their illness by the 

prescription of cannabis, he would support that doctor."



Mr McLetchie was backed by the Scottish Conservative Home 

Affairs spokesman, Mr Phil Gallie.



"We don't need to change the law," Mr Gallie said. "All we 

need to do is say doctors can prescribe cannabis. That is 

the message we are putting out.



"We don't see it as legalisation. It's providing a drug for 

medicinal use. Where we draw the line absolutely and 

fundamentally is where cannabis would be decriminalised for 

leisure use. We would be totally against that."



Labour MSP Kate McLean created embarrassment for her party 

recently when she admitted in a Big Issue survey that she 

smoked cannabis from her late teens to early 20s.



Mr Tommy Sheridan, of the Scottish Socialist Party, was the 

only other MSP who replied to the survey to admit to taking 

the drug.



A spokesman for Westminster Tories said that although Tory 

leader William Hague and Shadow Home Secretary Ann 

Widdecombe had taken a hard line against the legalisation of 

cannabis, the party took the view that the medical 

profession should have a final say in the debate. At the 

British Medical Association's annual conference in July, a 

resolution calling for the legalisation of cannabis for 

medical use was narrowly defeated along with a more 

controversial motion for the drug to be decriminalised for 

recreational use.



SNP MSP Margo MacDonald yesterday backed Mr McLetchie, 

saying cannabis could ease the unnecessary suffering of 

many.



She said she had tabled a motion to the Scottish Parliament 

calling for a commission to look at whether, from a social 

and medical point of view, changes needed to be made to the 

law on cannabis.



"I have an absolutely open mind," she said. "I'm willing to 

hear all the arguments as regards cannabis. One thing I am 

pretty well convinced of is we should not evaluate cannabis 

differently from tobacco and alcohol in terms of the harm it 

does to people and society in general."



Liberal Democrat leader Charles Kennedy has also called for 

a Royal Commission on the question of legalising cannabis.