Medicinal Cannabis
As of early 2012, cannabis is still classed as Schedule 1 - a drug with no medical value - under the 1971 Misuse of Drugs Act. Yet SATIVEX, a concentrated form of whole cannabis is prescibed on the NHS, although it's very hard to get.
The law relating to medicinal cannabis use is changing - slowly, but it is changing. This section is being kept online as an archive, for up do date information try the United patients Alliance
>> United Patients Alliance website
MEDICAL CANNABIS FACT SHEETS
The Alliance for Cannabis Therapeutics
>> Fact sheets
Cannabis: Medical reality versus authoritarian brutality
Ian Williams Goddard
>> Medcial reality vs authoritarian brutality
Marihuana: The Forbidden Medicine
Chapter one - The History of Cannabis
Lester
Grinspoon, and James B. Bakalar
>> Marihuana:
The Forbidden Medicine
What is medicinal cannabis?
>> The use of cannabis as medicine
Views and opinions from professional bodies and the public
GW the UK company who have brought SATIVEXC, a cannabis-based medicine, to the market.
Health Canada
>> Information for medical users (pdf document)
HoL Debate 2001
>> Thereputic uses of cannabis HoL deabte
>> Government response
Some of the illnesses cannabis can treat
THC4MS
THC4MS aimed to supply medicinal cannabis chocolate to bona-fide MS sufferers' throughout the UK in emergency situations only i.e:- their normal supply was exhausted. They were busted in 2005 and sentenced in 2007.
THC4MS bust 2007
>> The Story, UKCIA Letter to the Home Office and Reply from the Home Office
More information
>> Resources
Medicine of the future?
Cannabis reduces symptoms of MS
Lancet report
The claims by medical users that cannabis reduces the symptoms of MS has been confirmed by UK government trials. The study, of more than 600 patients, published in the Lancet medical journal, also provided some evidence that they boosted mobility. Other physical proof of the drugs effects on symptoms did not emerge however. Slightly more patients on the cannabis extract reported benefits than those on THC, an active compound found in cannabis. MS sufferers have been claiming these beneficial effects for years, many sufferers break the law buying illegal cannabis and self-help groups such as THC4MS have been supplying sufferers, but they run the risk of arrest and many medical users have been dragged through the courts. This study shows that cannabis really does make these ill people feel better, these claims cannot be ignored any longer.