Why not let cannabis ease sufferers’ pain? Jacquie Langham, an MS sufferer from Holt in Norfolk

Our inflexible laws are denying MS patients access to a drug that could change their lives 

  

By Philip Johnston  

The letters columns of The Daily Telegraph do not immediately spring to mind as a rallying point for the liberalisation of this country’s drugs laws. But two correspondents yesterday drew attention to what must be the most irrational and unjust restriction of all: the ban on the use of cannabis for medicinal purposes.

 

 Jacquie Langham

Just as there is plenty of evidence that cannabis is harmful (as, indeed, are tobacco and alcohol) it also has palliative qualities. People suffering from multiple sclerosis, for instance, find that cannabis, or substances based on the drug, help relieve muscular pain. Jacquie Langham, an MS sufferer from Holt in Norfolk, wrote about how she had been forced to buy Sativex, a legal cannabinoid that is administered in spray form, from the Internet because two GPs would not prescribe it for her.

“I could scream with frustration and desperation,” she added. Why should people be expected to endure pain when the wherewithal exists to relieve it; or be forced to break the law to obtain a natural substance that will make them feel better?

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