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Cannabis Campaigners' Guide News Database result:
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UK: Ex-drugs officer buys cannabis to relieve MS pain Sarah Schaefer The Independent Wednesday 10 Jan 2001 Kate Bradley, 56, who used to be an officer with the West Midlands Police, said she was being made to feel like a criminal because she could not get the drug from a doctor and had to turn to dealers instead. Her plight was highlighted by the Labour MP Peter Bradley (no relation) in the Commons when he appealed to ministers to allow cannabis use for MS sufferers. "It was her job to pursue and to lock up the people who peddled drugs. Now, she is out on the streets seeking to secure the only relief that she can have for the pain that she suffers from," he said. "They are victims of the torment of MS; they should not be made to be victims of an injustice." Mrs Bradley, from Telford, Shropshire, said cannabis was the only drug that alleviated the pain. She said she joined the police in 1964, when she was 20, and worked undercover with the vice squad exposing drug dealers but was forced to quit when she fell ill with MS in the 1970s. "For years I suffered horrendous pain. It was like living in a hornets' nest, with pain in my arms, legs, tongue, everywhere. The doctors put me on morphine but that didn't work. Then someone mentioned cannabis and in desperation I tried it." "I bought it off an illegal dealer and smoked it. Within an hour, after all those years, I felt the relief I was crying out for." Mrs Bradley, who is married with a daughter, said she now smokes four large "joints" of skunk cannabis every day. Alan Milburn, the Secretary of State for Health, has already signalled that the Government is likely to allow the use of the cannabis for medical purposes. Speaking in the Commons, Gisela Stuart, a Health minister, confirmed that government research was under way into the issue, involving some 660 sufferers of the degenerative disease. The Government will base its decision on that clinical evidence, due to be published in 2003. "I sympathise with any patient who is suffering and feels that an effective medicine is not available," she said. "However, as in any chronic illness it is very important to evaluate the benefits and risks of treatment." "The possession of cannabis is against the law for good scientific reasons in terms of acute and chronic health effects. Any medicine ... needs to be properly tested, properly assessed."
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