(Ed. note: It is good to see that the Lords are
talking about using whole cannabis and not just some possible "derivatives."
People in pain should not have to wait until the "scientists" can get their act
together. Nonetheless, they still do not seem to understand that they are -- in effect --
pleading guilty to having suppressed a valuable medicine for decades, thus causing vast
suffering and needless death and blindness. It will be interesting to see if the Home
Office continues to stall making cannabis available for tests the way that NIDA and the
DEA have prevented research in DEAland.)
See
Scottish
Scientist Timidly Calls For New Cannabis Law But Sounds So BoldMay 13,
1998
Press & Journal
editor@pj.ajl.co.uk
http://www.pressandjournal.co.uk/
By David Perry
CANNABIS MEDICAL USE TRIALS BACKED
PEERS are poised to back a leading Aberdeen academic’s call for full-scale
clinical trials on the medical use of cannabis.
Dr. Roger Pertwee received a sympathetic response from the influential Lords science
and technology committee after saying: "We are all keen to see clinical trials set
up."
Dr. Pertwee, reader in biomedical sciences in the Institute of Medical Sciences, told
the committee yesterday he had formed working groups of senior scientists to draw up
guidelines for trials using cannabis and its derivatives for
relieving the distress of patients suffering from MS and other diseases involving
extremely painful muscle spasms.
He said: "Perhaps the best way forward is for the department of health to call for
someone to mount a trial."
Stand-in committee chairman Lord Soulsby, a former president of
the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons and professor of animal pathology, led a
cross-examination whose friendly tone left it clear the eventual report on cannabis will
take.
At one point Lord Butterworth, a former vice-chancellor of Warwick University, agreed: "There is a need for clinical investigations."
Dr. Pertwee, president of the International Cannabinoid Research Society, said the
potential for drug derivatives for treating MS needed more clinical study.
He said cannabis was an accepted medicine until 1971, when it was banned and made it clear there was no evidence of its use leading to taking hard
drugs and that stopping caused only mild withdrawal symptoms.
Dr. Pertwee said there could be ways of avoiding the "psychotropic" effects
of the drug while using it or its derivatives to boost the appetites of AIDS sufferers,
curb the desire to eat sweets and chocolates, calm the pain from limbs that have been
amputated and treat bronchial asthma and the eye disease glaucoma.
Lord Dixon-Smith, former chairman of the governors of Anglia Polytechnic University,
said: "It has endless possibilities."
Supported