Sufferers from multiple sclerosis and other painful illnesses have long smoked marijuana to alleviate the discomforts of their condition. Doctors, who had previously advised their patients to buy the drug from shady types on street corners, will now be able to write them a private prescription costing about amp;pound;11 a day, Sativex. Free supplies courtesy of the National Health Service await a formal finding that the medicine is cost effective. Some 100,000 people in Britain have MS, with muscle cramps and spasms preventing about a third of them from performing simple tasks such as unscrewing a lid, getting dressed or climbing out of a car. Doctors will only be able to prescribe the new drug to MS patients with cramps and spasms for whom other treatments have failed. And there is to be no funky smoking of the stuff, patients will spray the fluid under their tongues about eight times a day. - The Economist.
