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Cannabis Campaigners' Guide News Database result:
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UK: Cannabis for Pain Relief Plea Rejected
Joe Churcher PA News
Thursday 14 Oct 2004 An MP's call for cannabis to be made available immediately as a pain-relieving medicine for multiple sclerosis sufferers was rejected by the Government tonight. Labour's Peter Bradley (The Wrekin) urged ministers to allow GPs to prescribe the drug to named patients to stop them being forced to buy it on the streets. But junior Home Office minister Caroline Flint insisted it would be 'wholly premature' to do so when a cannabis-based treatment was still being considered by a medicine watchdog. However she said she hoped that a 'safe but speedy' decision would be made on the licensing of Sativex - testing of which has been hit by serious delays. Rules have already been relaxed to allow 500 patients who tested the under-the-tongue spray to continue with the treatment. But until the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) has given the final go-ahead, its use cannot be extended to thousands of other sufferers. Mr Bradley, opening a short debate, said that he had been campaigning on the issue since meeting a former drugs squad officer who had developed MS. He said she had described to him the 'searing, crippling, unholy pain' that only cannabis could ease. But she was reduced to buying the drug on the streets from her wheelchair from the very people she used to investigate and arrest, he told the House. 'Why should sufferers have to choose between breaking the law or curing their pain?' he asked. He said that despite having been used as a drug for 5,000 years, including by Queen Victoria, it had in recent decades been classified as a drug with no medicinal value. 'MS patients are suffering frankly because we have a hang-up about the 1960s,' he said. He urged ministers to transfer the drug from Schedule 1 to Schedule 2 of the Misuse of Drugs Regulations - alongside cocaine and heroin that can be prescribed in certain cases. 'Who are we as politicians to stand between people suffering torments we cannot imagine and the medicines they need to make their lives bearable?' he asked. Labour's Martin Salter (Reading W) said sufferers could not understand why the Government could find time to downgrade cannabis as a recreational drug but not make it available medically. Ms Flint said the Government had taken a 'clear and consistent position' that it would make the necessary rule changes if the MHRA gave the drug the green light. 'We hope their conclusions will arrive sooner rather than later,' she said. She said that simply transferring cannabis to Schedule 2 would leave patients unable to guarantee the quality of the raw product they were getting. 'It would be wholly premature,' she said.
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