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.

Checked-by: (trikydik)