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Cannabis Campaigners' Guide News Database result:
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UK: Cannabis on offer to hospital patients
Nigel Hawkes The Times
Thursday 21 Aug 2003 PATIENTS awaiting surgery at 35 hospitals are to be asked if they would like to try cannabis-based medicines to control their post-operative pain. The trial, being run by the Medical Research Council, will look at whether painkillers based on cannabis can be considered a normal form of pain relief. Trials in patients with multiple sclerosis have shown encouraging results and a licence application is with the Medicines Control Agency. A team led by Anita Holdcroft, of Imperial College London, hopes to recruit 400 participants. The pills are not supposed to produce a "high", but reduced pain and a sense of wellbeing. Each patient will be randomly assigned to one of four oral treatments, in capsule form, containing either standardised cannabis extract, tetrahydrocannabinol (an ingredient in cannabis), a standard pain-relieving drug, or a placebo. The effects will be assessed over six hours. Dr Holdcroft said: "We need to assess the scientific merits of some of the anecdotal evidence (about cannabis) and we need to do this in the same way as any other experimental pain treatment." A synthetic cannabis compound, Dronabinol, can in-crease appetite and reduce agitation in Alzheimer's patients, Joshua Shua-Haim, a geriatrician, told a conference in Chicago. Patients can waste away through reluctance to eat.
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