Australian state to allow marijuana for pain relief

4.00pm

Australia's most populous state plans to allow seriously ill people to use marijuana as a medicine, following trials of the drug as a pain reliever in several US states, Canada and Europe.

However, a proposal for a four-year trial period by New South Wales state premier Bob Carr provoked outrage among anti-drug campaigners even though he vowed to maintain the state's tough stance on recreational use.

"When it comes to marijuana this is not a social revolution," Carr, of the centre-left Labor party, said on Wednesday.

"This is a method of us doing something compassionate for someone living with multiple sclerosis or receiving massive chemotherapy treatment."

Under the scheme, expected to be approved and begin by year's end, those suffering cancer, Aids, multiple sclerosis and other serious illnesses can register to use marijuana for pain relief. In what form it will be distributed has to be decided.

Minors and people convicted of drug crimes in New South Wales, where roughly a third of Australia's 19 million people live, would not get access to the programme.

Groups pushing for the decriminalisation of pot, who have fiercely criticised the Carr government's zero-tolerance approach to casual marijuana use and laws allowing police to use sniffer dogs in streets and pubs, welcomed the plan.

But anti-drug campaigners condemned it.

Jill Pearman, chairwoman of the Quit Marijuana Programme at Sydney's Westmead Hospital, said it was "absolutely scandalous". "I run a programme whereby we see people who are psychotic because of cannabis use," she told ABC radio.

- REUTERS