Patients call for cannabis help

Cannabis users could still be arrested

As the criminal status of cannabis is downgraded, calls have been made in Wales for multiple sclerosis patients to be allowed to use the drug to alleviate pain.

From Thursday, the substance is downgraded from a class B to a class C drug in England and Wales.

Possession of small quantities of the plant will now be a non-arrestable offence in many circumstances.

However, possession of cannabis will remain illegal and users could still be arrested.

Despite its legal status, cannabis is often used by people who have conditions like multiple sclerosis because it can help with pain relief and aid in the control of muscle spasms.

Patient Glyn Williams, from Caerwys in Denbighshire, believes cannabis should be declassified "at least for medicinal purposes".

He said he uses cannabis primarily as pain relief and to help him go to sleep.

If it was offered to me again I wouldn't say no Janet Flack, MS patient

Mr Williams added that he had tried morphine, but had not liked it.

Harry Owen Jones is the director of a multiple sclerosis centre in Saltney, Flintshire.

He said it was "a sad state when ordinary people who just want to alleviate pain have to become criminals effectively in the eyes of the law, in order to manage".

Janet Flack, who was diagnosed with the illness nine years ago, said cannabis did help "a lot of people and they should have the opportunity to try it".

She took cannabis as part of a hospital trial, but she was disappointed by its effects.

"Whether I was expecting too much I don't know, I was hoping it would bring my walking back, things like that," she said.

"I got to the stage where I said to them, 'It's not really doing anything for me'.

"I decided to come off the trial myself, but if it was offered to me again I wouldn't say no."

'Last time'

However, other patients at the centre do not think the drug should be downgraded further.

Roger Wright, who was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis five years ago, tried cannabis once but said he would probably not do it again.

"I'd read a lot about it...so I managed to get some from a friend of mine but it had an adverse effect - I passed out," he said.

"That was the last time I tried it and I wouldn't try it again."

About 80,000 adults a year are arrested and fined for cannabis possession.

Research has found the drug is far more harmful to health than smoking ordinary cigarettes, as more tar and harmful chemicals are taken into the body.

Around 120,000 people die every year in the UK from smoking cigarettes.