De marihuana gaf kankerlijder haar het levensrug
De Alliantie van de Cannabis van Legalise | Een kankerslachtoffer gemaakte medische geschiedenis van de BORST onlangs, als eerste persoon in Schotland om cannabis als behandeling voor chronische pijn worden voorgeschreven.
De vroegere verpleegster Jeanie Rae, 57 van de Nationale Gezondheidsdienst, heeft een gezuiverd uittreksel van de controversiële drug genomen om de het kwellen zenuwschade in haar juist wapen te behandelen die door een verrichting en een radiotherapie wordt veroorzaakt haar kanker te slaan.
De pijn verliet haar vrijwel in haar huis in Balfron, Stirlingshire, bijna vier jaar gevangengenomen omdat zij niet naakt zelfs de lichtste aanraking kon.
De standaard medicijnen die aan haar worden gegeven helpen het lijden behandelen hadden weinig effect. Maar maar in 2007 werd zij aangeboden de op cannabis-gebaseerde drug Sativex door artsen bij de kliniek van het pijnbeheer in Gartnaval het Ziekenhuis, Glasgow, als deel van een klinische proef.
Rae werd één van de eerste mensen in het UK de drug op voorschrift te geven nadat de artsen haar toestonden blijven nemend het na de proef, gezien de verbeteringen aan haar voorwaarde.
Een paar nevels van de drug onder haar tong heeft elke dag Rae toegelaten om het normaal leven te leiden.
„Voordien, beperkte de pijn totaal mijn leven en wat ik kon doen,“ zei de moeder van twee. „Het was zo slecht dat ik niet naakt iemand kon hebben me of zelfs borstel tegen mijn wapen in de straat raken.
„Toen de artsen voorstelden dat de cannabis van voordeel zou kunnen zijn was ik niet zeker, maar ik wist ik niet wilde houden levend als dat. Binnen een week na het nemen van het begon ik een groot verschil op te merken - ik voelde me oneindig beter.“
Canada onlangs werd het eerste land in de wereld om een op cannabis-gebaseerde pijnstiller goed te keuren toen de gezondheidswerkgevers Sativex het groene licht voor gebruik gaven.
Het werd gegeven goedkeuring van de symptomatische hulp van pijn in de lijders van lidstaten, en de uk's geneeskundeautoriteiten overwegen momenteel een gelijkaardige toepassing. De artsen hopen de drug dan voor voorschrift voor andere soorten chronische pijn zal goedgekeurd worden.
Maar Rae is toegestaan om de drug op voorschrift als deel van een uitgebreid `open etiket' te gebruiken proef sinds de aanvankelijke klinische vorig jaar gebeëindigde proef van drie maanden.
As the wife of a doctor in a quiet rural village, she said she was wary about taking the drug, and its hardly surprising as the newspapers are filled daily with tales of woe regarding cannabis, which is enough to put some people off seeking relief from their conditions.
She said: “As someone who had never smoked or taken cannabis before, I did not want to become addicted to it.
“There is a lot of controversy surrounding cannabis because it is an illegal drug, but in comparison to other drugs it is quite tame.”
Rae was diagnosed with breast cancer five yeas ago, forcing her to give up her job as a nurse at the Western General Hospital in Glasgow.
Her husband Allan, a retired doctor, and their sons Fraser, 36, and Neil, 32, have supported her after she had a lumpectomy to remove cancerous cells from her breast.
The surgeons also removed lymph glands from under her right arm, but together with radiotherapy it caused her nerve endings to become inflamed and damaged. Each day Rae must take about 10 sprays of Sativex to ease her pain - less than a quarter of the maximum daily dose. But she admits it does have some side-effects.
She said: “It does make me sleepy and hungry - it gives me the munchies.”
Multiple sclerosis sufferers have been campaigning for years to be allowed to use cannabis to ease their symptoms.
One sufferer, Biz Ivol (now deceased), from Herston, South Ronaldsay in Orkney, sparked a furious debate when she admitted making cannabis-laced chocolates for other patients with the same condition.
She later stood trial for the possession and supply of cannabis in 1997 but was admonished by the court after admitting growing cannabis plants to relieve her pain.
At the time, the British Medical Association appealed for leniency for MS sufferers facing drug charges for using cannabis. Another case against Ivol was abandoned last year after her health began to fail and she died in September last year.
Paul Cruikshank, a friend of Ivol and a member of the Legalise Cannabis Alliance, said: “Patients should be able to get hold of a medicine without fear of being prosecuted. Putting people in jail for using a medicine that alleviates their pain and symptoms is totally wrong and against their human rights.”
Former Home Secretary Charles Clarke ordered a rethink on the government’s decision to downgrade cannabis to a class C drug.
Fears that the psychotic effects of the drug could lead to long-term mental illnesses such as schizophrenia caused anti-drug campaigners to call for a reversal of the legislation.
They also fear use of the drug can lead to abuse of other harder drugs. A point which has since been disproven many times.
But Alistair Ramsay, director of Scotland Against Drugs, said distinctions had to be made between abusing drugs for recreation and using them for medical need.
He said: “It is hardly surprising that cannabis is having a proper medical effect on people who suffer pain.
“Other drugs derived from opium like morphine have been used for similar purposes. It is only when they are used improperly that the problems can occur. Like many drugs currently available on prescription, doctors will need to use caution to ensure it is not being misused.”
A recent study by researchers at the University of Lausanne in Switzerland found even cannabis-based medicines used for pain relief can cause symptoms such as paranoid delusions and severe anxiety.
But Dr Mick Serpell, the consultant who led the Sativex clinical trial at Gartnaval, believes the drug could help patients with few other choices.
He said: “We had some good results in our patients - it helped about one in three.
“These are patients who have tried everything else, so to get that kind of response can help a lot of people who have no other choices. The type of people who use it to treat pain are totally different from those who use it for recreation.”
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