Subj: Cannabis Campaign - Hope for those in pain

Date: Jun 7, 1998

Source: Independent on Sunday

Cannabis Campaign - Hope for those in pain

THE growing consensus about the merits of
cannabis in the alleviation of pain was
strengthened last week when it emerged that a
government-commissioned report backs its
therapeutic use, WRITES VANESSA THORPE.

The Independent on Sunday campaign to
decriminalise cannabis won a second significant
boost last week when a jury in the north of
England cleared a man who admitted to smoking
the drug to alleviate his chronic back pain.

The report, commissioned by the Department of
Health and compiled by the Royal College of
Psychiatry, found that prescribing cannabis to
sufferers of some forms of cancer and Aids is
merited. It states that it would be "irrational" not
to explore the use of cannabis in other treatments
as well. The report also calls for changes in the
law to allow properly controlled scientific studies.

News of the study's findings came the same day
that Colin Davis, a 30-year-old joiner who broke
his back four years ago when he fell from a bridge
near Stockport, was cleared by Manchester
Crown Court of drugs charges.

The court heard that when Mr Davis was arrested
in November, police found 18 cannabis plants in
his bedroom. Mr Davis told the jury that he had
turned to the drug out of desperation when
prescribed medicines failed to cope with spasms
of pain which threatened to immobilise him. A
verdict of not guilty of cultivating cannabis under
the 1971 Misuse of Drugs Act was returned by
the court in only 40 minutes.

Mr Davis's solicitor, James Riley, said the case
was ground breaking and reflected changing
attitudes to the use of cannabis in medical cases.

At the time of Mr Davis's arrest last year the
British Medical Association released a report
suggesting that the courts should not penalise
those who were driven to use the drug by chronic
symptoms. Mr Davis told the IoS he only started
to grow the plants because he had not liked the
idea of buying from a dealer.

On another note, football supporters who are also
fans of the IoS campaign to decriminalise
cannabis should be wary of taking up an
evangelical stance if they travel to France this
summer.

Not only is smoking the drug there illegal, but so,
too, is the public display of the image of the
cannabis leaf.

A team of aspiring British film-makers who drove
down to Cannes to raise money for a new project
discovered this fact the hard way. Their new film
comedy, Amsterdam, written by London
mini-cab driver Stephen Loyd, tells of a group of
working-class lads who spend time together each
year at the eponymous Dutch city's cannabis
festival.

As part of the attempt to draw attention to it,
Loyd and his colleagues had painted the side of a
10-year-old BT van with the leaf logo - an act for
which they were promptly arrested by French
police and ordered to leave the country.