Cannabis can ease the pain of suffering of patients
Labour MP Gordon Prentice favours making the drug available for medical
purposes.

In July this year the British Medical Association voted overwhelmingly for
cannabis products to be made available for medical use. If this happens it will
simply return us to the position which applied before 1973, when the 1971 Misuse
of Drugs Act came into force, outlawing medical use of the drug. Before then
doctors could prescribe cannabis which was often dispensed in tincture form,
like cough mixture.

Later this month the BMA's Board of Science will, it is believed, recommend
wider use of the drug. This will reflect opinion within the profession which is
moving sharply in favour of legalisation for medical use. The BMA magazine's
Doctors Decide Panel of over 100 hospital doctors and GPs wants cannabis to be
available on prescription. In an article in the BMA News Review earlier this
year, 78 per cent of hospital doctors and three in five GPs agreed that the drug
should be available for therapeutic purposes.

There is no doubt in my mind that cannabis and cannabis derivatives can help
people cope with a variety of medical conditions. The drug has for centuries
been regarded as having therapeutic value even if, these days, its efficacy is
challenged. There is a mass od anecdotal evidence from people suffering from MS,
for example, which backs the claim that the drug really works. It can help
reduce tremors and spasms and ease movement. Some people with AIDS say it
improves their appetite. It can help in the treatment of glaucoma. Tragically,
because its medical use is unlawful it makes research much more difficult than
it need be because a special Home Office licence is needed for any drug trial.

Despite this, in 1995, the previous government was forced to lessen the controls
on dronabinol, one of the active ingredients of cannabis, after the World Health
Organisation recommended that this derivative had therapeutic value as an
antiemetic for patients undergoing chemotherapy for cancer. The Misuse of Drugs
Act puts cannabis in Schedule 1 drugs subject to the strictest control on the
grounds that they have allegedly little or no medical value and cause social
problems through misuse. Besides cannabis, the list includes LSD, mescalin, raw
opium and coca leaf. There is a powerful case for taking cannabis into the
Schedule 2 list of controlled drugs with medical use, such as morphine,
methadone and amphetamines, allowing doctors lawfully to prescribe drugs that
they believe will benifit patients.

Gordon Prentice is MP for Pendle in Lacashire and secretary of the All Party MS
Group