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Cannabis medicine seen ready in three years

Giles Elgood

Reuters

Tuesday 16 Nov 1999


A British drug company said on Tuesday it hoped to have a
cannabis-based medicine ready to be prescribed by doctors within three
or four years.

Sufferers from diseases such as multiple sclerosis, 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.

GW Pharmaceuticals said it was making progress in clinical studies
with cannabis-based medicines. A small group of volunteers had been
taking cannabis under clinical conditions in order to determine the
best dose. Some had taken cannabis lozenges which dissolve under the
tongue while others used an inhaler. Dr Geoffrey Guy, chairman of GW
Pharmaceuticals, said his company had carried out its first studies in
which human subjects were given standardised extracts of cannabis.

"I am pleased to report that the progress of our development programme
from the laboratory to human clinical dosing has proceeded without
problems," he added in a statement. Guy said there was evidence that
cannabis could relieve pain in multiple sclerosis, spinal cord injury
and neuralgia. His company would be evaluating these uses in some
2,000 patients over the next two or three years.

"Subject to the necessary regulatory approvals, we hope to have a
cannabis-based medicine available for prescription by doctors within
three to four years," Guy said.

GW Pharmaceuticals is licensed by the British Home Office (Interior
Ministry) to grow, possess and supply cannabis for medical research.

If trials are successful, the Home Office will change the law to allow
prescription of cannabis-based medicines, the company statement said.

GW has been growing cannabis in secure, computer controlled
glasshouses in the south of England. Although the plants are the same
as those grown for recreational use -- cannabis sativa -- the trials
are designed to maximise the drug's analgesic, or pain relieving,
effect rather than to make subjects so high that they do not care
about the pain.

 

 

 

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