Free from pain but not prosecution

[Don2]

Free from pain but not prosecution featuring Multiple sclerosis patient Sarah Martin

Multiple sclerosis patient Sarah Martin believes cannabis is the best way to liberate herself from the daily pain she endures.

She says just half a teaspoon in a hot drink will keep her pain-free and spasm-free for about three hours. She also uses a vaporizer to ingest the drug.

But by obtaining the much sought after relief which enables her to walk a little more easily once her muscles have "freed up", she becomes a criminal.

She chooses not to take any regular - and legal - medication, maintaining it would give her side effects such as high blood pressure, ulcers and even the risk of heart failure and psychosis.

Ms Martin, who lives just outside Birmingham, told BBC Inside Out West Midlands that she wants the law to be changed so she can take cannabis free from the fear of prosecution.

Multiple sclerosis is a degenerative disease of the central nervous system and symptoms include a loss of balance and bouts of paralysis which can eventually lead to the person with the condition ending up in a wheelchair.

"When I wake up in the morning my knees, my ankles, I have all these muscles pull my leg to the left so I find it hard to walk straight," she said.

"With cannabis these symptoms recede to a point where I can walk OK-ish.

"I want politicians to be nice to me... I'm sick."

With the possible side effect of psychosis one aspect that Ms Martin says stops her from taking legal medication, how much of an issue is it from taking cannabis?

Professor Glynn Lewis, from the University of Bristol, said studies suggested that people who regularly smoke the drug double the risk of psychosis, although it is still uncommon - perhaps affecting 2 or 3% of users in their whole lifetime.

However, the legal status of cannabis is different in other parts of the world with more and more countries, and 13 US states, allowing the prescription of the drug.

'Illicit market'
As part of her research, Ms Martin visited Amsterdam where medicinal cannabis is available with a prescription although she was unable to get any because she has not taken legal medication in the UK.

"I just don't want to take the route of taking 13 pills a day when I can just use one medicine - cannabis - and I feel fantastic using it," she said.

"I'd rather take the risk of breaking the law than go through that."

And remaining a criminal is what Ms Martin is facing, as government adviser Baroness Finlay has said it is unlikely herbal cannabis will be made available on the NHS.

She cited quality and dose control and leakage into the illicit market as the main issues.

Lady Finlay said: "You can look at other countries and say: 'They do that, why can't we do that here?'.

"But you have to look at it in the context of the whole healthcare system, the regulation system and the philosophy of the society in which they are operating."

But Ms Martin still believes cannabis is the best treatment for her condition.

"I've not been put off cannabis for my illness because I've done all the relevant research available in other countries.

"Cannabis has a very strong medicinal value that can be a benefit to a great many people if it's made available."

Watch Sarah on Video
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/west ... 474532.stm

Kr
Don

[Win]

It is shocking! Sarah crying is a tear jerker! May these politicians realise that people are in pain, and need just consumer rights when it comes to cannabis!

Great post Don!

Win

[Mouthpiece]

Lady Finlay said: "You can look at other countries and say: 'They do that, why can't we do that here?'.

"But you have to look at it in the context of the whole healthcare system, the regulation system and the philosophy of the society in which they are operating."

This is an early front-runner for B/S of the Year, 2010

What principle of the NHS is offended by effective treatment of MS symptoms?
How does a regulation system come to be more important than public health?
And which philosophy (other than de Sade's) endorses withholding analgesia to people in chronic pain?

These three clear and fair questions have been sent to Lady Finlay via writetothem.com
No substantive reply was forthcoming. But I urge everyone who cares to keep asking.

[Mouthpiece]

A written reply from Lady Finlay arrived today:
"Dear Mr. XXXXXXXXXX,
Thankyou for writing to me at the end of January following the programme that went out on medicinal cannabis.
There is no principle of the NHS that is offended by effective symptomatic relief of multiple sclerosis. The difficulty is whether you allow raw plant cannabis, with no control over the concentration of chemicals in it, to be marketed as part of NHS treatment. No other drug or medicine is supplied this way on the NHS. Everything has quality control and dose regulation. There is a strong argument for support of medicinal cannabinoids, and indeed there is a company that is undertaking a trial.
If the trials show the evidence of the efficacy of properly produced and closely controlled medicinal cannabinoids, then I hope that they would be prescribable.
Yours sincerely,
Professor the Baroness Finlay of Llandaff

[Mouthpiece]

My reply:
Dear Professor Finlay of Llandaff,
Thank you for your letter dated 22nd February, and for replying partially to my queries.
I read in the Derby Herald of 22nd March 2010, that one Mr Garfield is to serve time in prison for using cannabis to alleviate chronic pain. This will cost both the taxpayer, (for his futile incarceration,) and the local economy, (as his small business is consequently at risk.) I am at a loss to imagine how the public interest might be served by these kinds of prosecutions.
I would very much welcome the opportunity to meet you. further to discuss this urgent issue, (of morality, healthcare, democracy and economics.) Please allow me a little of your time.
Hoping to be of assistance to you, I am, Yours sincerely,
XXXX XXXXXXXXXX

[Alun]

For many years I have thought that requesting a doctor's prescription for "raw" cannabis is a waste of energy, simply because doctors prescrbe medicines that are prepared in such a way that standard doses all contain the same compounds, so Finlay is correct

Doctors cannot prescribe plants

Doctors cannot (within the law) recommend substances that the law prohibits possession of

The only way that doctors can recommend cannabis is if the restrictions are removed - maybe somebody can correct me if I am wrong

alun

A written reply from Lady Finlay arrived today:
"Dear Mr. XXXXXXXXXX,
Thankyou for writing to me at the end of January following the programme that went out on medicinal cannabis.
There is no principle of the NHS that is offended by effective symptomatic relief of multiple sclerosis. The difficulty is whether you allow raw plant cannabis, with no control over the concentration of chemicals in it, to be marketed as part of NHS treatment. No other drug or medicine is supplied this way on the NHS. Everything has quality control and dose regulation. There is a strong argument for support of medicinal cannabinoids, and indeed there is a company that is undertaking a trial.
If the trials show the evidence of the efficacy of properly produced and closely controlled medicinal cannabinoids, then I hope that they would be prescribable.
Yours sincerely,
Professor the Baroness Finlay of Llandaff

[Mouthpiece]

But you can go to a Chinese herbalist on most high streets, and be given buckets full of strange, raw plants and even animal parts without let or hindrance. No- one licenses or analyses these compounds, and they are freely on sale.
Cannabis is just a herbal medicine, known as useful in Shakespeare's time.