Story of Cannabis

Parliament may have chosen to dismiss the House of Lords report but research into medicinal cannabis continues apace. In April 2000, the British Medical Research Council (MRC) funded clinical trials run by Dr John Zajicek of the University of Plymouth Postgraduate Medical School in partnership with the local regional National Health Service hospital, the study directed at MS sufferers. Twenty months later, MRe-funded clinical trials were expanded to include terminal cancer victims. In the spring of 2000, Notcutt commenced trials of cannabis based medicines at his hospital. With a small group of patients suffering pain from inoperable nerve damage, he found 80 per cent received some easing of pain with a few experiencing almost total relief.

Other trials were soon to follow at the Rivermead Rehabilitation Centre in Oxford, the Princess Elizabeth Hospital on the island of Guernsey and the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery in London, the latter receiving a grant from the Medicinal Cannabis Research Foundation (MeRF).

All the trials have run with the assistance of GW Pharmaceuticals, a company founded in Salisbury, Wiltshire, in 1998 by Drs Geoffrey Guy and Brian Whittle, to develop a range of therapeutic medicines derived from cannabis to meet patient needs in a wide range of indications. The licence issued to Dr Guy to permit him to grow forty thousand cannabis plants stipulated that his cultivation site, which is under glass, be at a secret location, ringed by high-security electric fencing and patrolled by guard dogs. Dr Guy is consequently the only person in Britain who is legally allowed to grow cannabis with a higher than 0.3 per cent THe content. Ironically, the company's head office and research facility is on the Porton Down Science Park, close to Britain's secret biological warfare laboratories. GW Pharmaceuticals is attempting to develop an extract of marijuana which is delivered by mouth spray and intended to treat multiple sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis and spinal-cord injuries. The spray is used because smoking is not suitable for all patients and ingestion too unreliable. Another branch of the research is to try to produce a cannabis-based analgesic which does not cause hallucination or intoxication. (An indication of what the future might hold for medicinal cannabis is shown by the firm's share dealings. When the company floated on the London Stock Exchange in 2001, its flotation was oversubscribed six times. Within a year, an ordinary one penny share was trading at £1.10.)

In May 2002, the first cannabis-based drugs to be developed were delivered to the British government's National Institute for Clinical Excellence (somewhat incongruously known as NIeE) for evaluation as a painkiller in lieu of morphine. Even so, supporters of medical cannabis have expressed misgivings. Should cannabis be passed for medicinal use, it will still be illegal unless obtained from a registered supplier who will, in turn, have to acquire their stock from drug companies. Whilst this means the quality or strength of the drug will be standardized, it also means that, as some objectors believe, the drug companies will have hijacked what is in fact an ancient and natural folk remedy. It is also believed by some that the pharmaceutical multinationals are secretly lobbying governments to keep cannabis on a restricted drug schedule so as to keep it exclusive and maintain their monopoly on whatever they might develop in the future. Rumours have also circulated that some companies are seeking to patent the natural constituents of cannabis.

Irrespective of the legality of the situation, a number of British doctors have for some years recommended their patients to use cannabis, if they can find a supplier. This, of course, is not difficult. Most towns in Britain have a local Mr Nice in a pub: it is just a matter of knowing which one. In 2001, it was unofficially estimated that about three thousand MS sufferers in Great Britain used marijuana medicinally.