LONDON: Cannabis is a ‘wonder drug’ capable of transforming the lives of very sick people, according to the results of the first clinical trials of the drug. Tests sanctioned by the British Government are proving far more successful than doctors, patients and cannabis campaigners ever dared hope. Some of the patients are simply calling it a ‘miracle’. Taking the drug - which it is still illegal for doctors to prescribe - a woman paralyzed by multiple sclerosis to ride a horse for the first time in years; and a man who could not sit up in a chair on his own to live without a carer.

Until now claims of the benefits of the drug for certain conditions have been anecdotal. But the preliminary results of the UK government trial, started last year, suggest that 80 per cent of those taking part have derived more benefit from cannabis than from any other drug, with many describing it as ‘miraculous’. The results make it almost inevitable that the Government will bow to public pressure and legalize the cultivation of cannabis for medical purposes by 2002. Scientists now predict that cannabis - first used for medicinal reasons 5,000 years ago - will follow aspirin and penicillin and become a ‘wonder drug’ prescribed for a wide range of conditions.

Bowing to pressure for a less hard-line attitude, the Home Office started the first major cannabis trials in the world to see whether there was any scientific basis for its use as medicine. A licence was granted to a specially formed drug company to grow the plants under controlled conditions in a secret location in southern England. Twenty-three patients, suffering from multiple sclerosis and arthritis, were recruited on to the first trial, and given daily doses of cannabis by spraying it under the tongue, before wider trials were started.

Tyrone Castle, a former publican, started suffering from multiple sclerosis when he was 21 and became so incapacitated he needed two helpers to winch him out of bed. He also suffered from uncontrollable spasms. Cannabis has transformed his life. “It has really helped sort out my spasms. It helps me sleep because I don’t spend the night jumping about. The difference in my legs is unbelievable - they are no longer stiff as a board,”he said. Jo, the wife of a school chaplain, suffered so badly from multiple sclerosis she would struggle to lift her legs up in the air six times. After she started the trial, she could lift her legs 25 times. “It’s miraculous, really extraordinary. I’ve never had any sort of relief of this kind, and I’ve tried pretty well everything,” she said.

Notcutt said that the trial was a success: “The results have exceeded what I dared hope for. We’re getting 80 per cent of patients getting good-quality benefit from the cannabis. For some we are getting almost total relief from their pain, with pain scores going down to zero.” Doctors believe cannabis could eventually prove useful in osteoporosis, cancer, AIDS, arthritis, spine injury and certain forms of mental illness. —Dawn/The Observer News Service.