Britain’s Medicines Control Agency has given approval to GW Pharmaceuticals for human medical marijuana trials.
This study is the first full-scale patient trials of therapeutic cannabis products and will involve 2,000 patients. Patients suffering from multiple sclerosis, spinal cord injury, severe pain and spasticity will be involved in the trials.
“Our aim is to test some of the claims which have been made for the medicinal qualities of cannabis in a structured clinical research program,” said Dr. Willy Notcutt who leads this first trial. “This is an exciting moment, and we hope very much that our findings will lead to significant improvements in the pain relief available for sufferers of multiple sclerosis and other debilitating conditions.”
“It’s remarkable that the British government has moved so quickly on the matter of conducting actual human trials with marijuana,” said Allen St. Pierre, NORML Foundation Executive Director. “The British have gone from white paper to parliamentary report to research implementation in less than two years. Compare that with the U.S., where, in the last 30 years the government has fought ‘tooth and nail’ to not allow medical access to marijuana. The government has rejected the findings of two of its own commissions; fought NORML in a 22-year lawsuit; canceled a program that provided government grown marijuana to select seriously ill medical patients; propagandized against voter initiatives in seven states; supported congressional efforts to not count the votes in a medical marijuana voter initiative in the District of Columbia; and finally the U.S. government even threatened physicians who spoke to their patients about medical marijuana. What is wrong with the U.S. Government?”
For more information, please contact Allen St. Pierre, NORML Foundation Executive Director at (202) 483-8751.
