Nexus - 0305 - New Times Magazine-pages

Page Content (OCR)

then you can see that the drug companies will have something to Cannabis has been used for centuries in the treatment of various lose here. kinds of chronic pain. It was used on the battlefields of the Civil JR: Do you see this as a big obstacle in changing drug policy War as an analgesic medicine until morphine displaced it. here in North America? Morphine was much quicker for the pain and a much more power- Dr G: Well, it is certainly playing a part. It is indirectly play- ful pain-reliever than cannabis. Cannabis cannot defeat very pow- ing a part in the Partnership for a Drug Free America ads. To say _ erful pain. The price of using morphine was that many people suf- they are inaccurate is an understatement. fered from what was then called “soldier's disease", which was JR: Are we also talking about DARE, the Drug Abuse _ addiction to morphine. Resistance Education program we see in many schools at this Cannabis is very useful in the treatment of migraine headaches. time? Sir William Osler, in his last textbook on medicine, describes Dr G: Oh yes, that is a terrible program. Again, it is misedu- cannabis as the best single medicine for the treatment of the pain cating children about drugs. It has now been established in a _ of migraine. major study that it doesn’t do a bit of good. We're all worried The list is longer than that but I don't think you want me to go about youngsters doing drugs, but now DARE has been demon- _on and on about this. One of the amazing things about cannabis is strated not to do any good. its versatility. It has many uses. It is also JR: In your book, Marihuana, The : remarkably non-toxic and it will be quite Forbidden Medicine. there are pany wher "The drug compantes Seema te when it is not a — sub- ences to the medicinal uses of cannabis. * .. stance. In my opinion, cannabis will be seen What are some of the medical problems you are not interested in as a wonder drug of the 1990s, much as peni- eal 4 9 ae a a: : ‘Oe Or Fi tees ak treat- marnjuana as a medicine | ab ik peat Peat book on cannabis ment in the last couple of decades is with the because the plant Marihuana Reconsidered, you mentioned cancer chemotherapeutic substances. A bi : 4 that the international drug-control treaties, problem with hate of these is the aa - cannot be patented. specifically the United Nations Single nausea and vomiting. It is the kind of nau- |: ney * Convention on Narcotic Drugs, were not a sea that anybody who has not experienced it |: lf you can't patent it, serious obstacle to the legalisation of can only imagine. It is very important that i cannabis, Do you still go along with this? this nausea be defeated so patients can be you can't make money Dr G: There is no question about it reasonably comfortable with this treat- on it. There is no serious obstacle. Treaties ment. As I have mentioned, there are can be changed and I think the push to SS male crags ee it is just Their only interest is woe ~ ow oo from —_ The at Cannabis 1s Often the best. * * E interest in this 1s growing much more Then there is glaucoma which is a negative one. It will rapidly in Europe than in the US. In disorder of increased intraocular pres- eventually displace fact, there is so much new information sure in the eyes. If that pressure is not e ; regarding medicinal cannabis use that brought down, glaucoma can eventual- some of their ; Yale University Press has asked us for a ly lead to blindness. There are conven- ha ak ° i : second edition of Marihuana, The tional medicines that work pretty well; p rmaceutica | Forbidden Medicine. This book has but, for some people, cannabis works hI " q been translated into 10 languages, better and with fewer side-effects. products. j including Japanese. Epilepsy is a disorder which has Late in 1995 we received a letter been treated by cannabis for centuries. from our German publisher congratulat- About 25 per cent of people in the US ing us on our seventh printing. They who have various forms of epilepsy don't get good relief from the — said our book has begun a "robust debate on the medicinal use of conventional medicines. Many of them do get relief from one of marijuana in Germany". So, the Europeans are way ahead of us, the oldest anti-epileptic medicines, cannabis. and | think the pressure will probably come from them to make the Multiple sclerosis affects more than two million people in the necessary legal changes so cannabis can be used as a medicine US, and one of its distressing symptoms is muscle spasm. It is without interference. The present situation is just awful. These very painful. Anybody who has had a cramp while swimming will poor people who use it as a medicine already have some degree of know what muscle spasm pain is all about. Cannabis is very anxiety regarding their disease. Another layer of anxiety is effective for the muscle spasms of not only multiple sclerosis but imposed on them by their government; namely, they might get also of paraplegia and quadriplegia. arrested or have their homes confiscated because they use Furthermore, cannabis helps people with MS who may have cannabis as a medicine. trouble controlling their bladders. Cannabis is very helpful in JR: Do you think these international treaties are what keep the reducing this kind of loss of control. Not long ago I was in ‘war on drugs’ alive? London doing a TV debate on the topic of medicinal cannabis use. Dr G: I think the Single Convention is not a big obstacle, There was a woman in the audience who said she had come down _ frankly. I think lots of people use that as an excuse, that we can't from Leeds, two-and-a-half hours on the train, to be in the televi- do anything because of the Single Convention. I'm not an expert sion audience. She has MS. The part that was so distressing for _ on it, but the international lawyers I've talked to say this is not the her was the social embarrassment of losing control over her blad- problem. I think the war on drugs is a much bigger thing than our der. Well, she said cannabis has restored her bladder contro! and discussion of medicinal cannabis use. The ‘war on drugs’ is a she could now make the two-and-a-half-hour trip from Leeds with much more complicated problem. If we stick to the narrow agen- no trouble. da of medicinal cannabis use, I think putting pressure on our gov- NEXUS ¢ 17 AUGUST-SEPTEMBER 1996