EAST Lancashire MP Gordon Prentice is backing moves to permit cannabis to be used for medical purposes.

He is one of the sponsors of a new Commons bill to allow doctors to prescribe the drug and its derivatives for the first time since 1971.

After that, cannabis was put on schedule one of the Misuse of Drugs Act as having no "therapeutic use".

This bans doctors from prescribing it unlike much harder and more dangerous drugs such as heroin, morphine and cocaine which are all prescribable.

Mr Prentice said: "I want to see cannabis put back in the medicine chest. I want doctors to be able to prescribe it as they were before 1971.

"It is absurd that a doctor cannot give a patient cannabis but can give them heroin, cocaine and morphine."

Mr Prentice says cannabis can relieve a number of conditions such as multiple sclerosis, arthritis, AIDS, glaucoma and cancer.

It is particularly useful in reducing nausea for cancer sufferers undergoing chemotherapy.

He condemned the jailing of Swansea pensioner Eric Mann for a year for growing cannabis to relieve chronic pain as "utterly barbaric". He is one of the co-sponsors of the Misuse of Drugs (Amendment) Bill brought in by fellow Labour MP Paul Flynn with all-party backing.

This was another reason to change the law, the Pendle MP added.

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