Pubdate: Wed, 29 Nov 2000
Source: Register-Guard, The (OR)
Copyright: 2000 The Register-Guard
Contact:  PO Box 10188, Eugene, OR 97440-2188
Website: http://www.registerguard.com/
Author: Craig Brett, Bloomberg News

DRUG MAKER GROWS POT - FOR MEDICINE

LONDON - Many new drugs are researched and developed in secrecy, but few 
grow in a greenhouse protected by electric fences and 24-hour guards.

For GW Pharmaceuticals Ltd., different rules apply. The British drug maker 
is growing 30,000 marijuana plants with an eye toward a potential $700 
million annual market for easing such ailments as glaucoma and nausea. The 
company says it's the only one in the world producing pharmaceutical-grade 
cannabis for clinical use.

"It's a medicine. About four or five puffs will ease the spasms in my legs 
within minutes," says wheelchair-bound Bill Thornton-Smith, 43, who takes 
the drug for his multiple sclerosis. "If I wanted to get high, I would just 
pop down the shop and get a bottle of wine."

Recognizing that doctors are unlikely to prescribe a medicine that's 
smoked, GW has developed a spray. A device delivers the drug under the 
tongue and records the frequency and size of the doses for doctors, said 
Justin Gover, GW's managing director.

The closely held company is testing marijuana specially cultivated at its 
secret location on 20 MS patients. Next year, GW plans tests in more than 
100 people, each of whom must be licensed by the United Kingdom's Home 
Office. If the studies are successful, GW intends to market the drug for 
MS, nausea and arthritis by 2003.

Thornton-Smith and about 85,000 others in Britain have MS, a debilitating 
disease of the central nervous system that can cause muscle spasms and 
paralysis. About 4 percent, or 3,400, of them, smoke pot as medical 
therapy, according to a report by the House of Lords.

Marijuana may also alleviate phantom limb, a condition in which amputees 
sense pain where an arm or leg used to be, Gover said.

The British government has said if the benefits of marijuana can be 
scientifically proven, it would propose an amendment to The Misuse of Drugs 
Act to allow its use.

Still, GW faces a number of obstacles. Only about one of five drug 
compounds that enter clinical testing makes it to the market. And the 
benefits of marijuana, which remains illegal in much of the world, are 
hotly disputed.

"While we hear a lot about people who say cannabis has helped them, we hear 
a lot less about the people who say it hasn't," said David Harrison, a 
spokesman for the Multiple Sclerosis Society, which seeks more research on 
the drug. "It has had quite nasty effects on their sense of balance and 
nervous systems."
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