Pot Proponent Just Says No

What, then, does Grinspoon propose? He argues that cannabis "should be removed from the medical and criminal control systems. It should be made legal for adult use and taxed, just like alcohol."

Geoffrey Guy, GW's founder and chairman, concedes that Sativex might, in fact, enable the British government to separate medical marijuana from the debate over decriminalizing the drug for recreational use. But he believes that in the long run, the chance that marijuana might one day be decriminalized will help more than hurt him.

"The British government's policy in this area has been to maintain recreational cannabis as an illegal activity but to give aid to a program that could bring forward a legitimate, cannabis-based medicine," he said when I interviewed him in southeastern England. "We have basically been the animators of the medicinal part of that policy. Frankly, if our program disappeared tomorrow, the government wouldn't have a policy.

"The debate over legalizing the recreational use of marijuana is best dealt with by politicians and the plebiscite, not by businessmen and clinicians," he continued. "But to the extent that societal views of cannabis become more tolerant, it reduces some of the hurdles and enables us to position our medicines in the context of normal medical practice, without all the baggage of a debate that's mainly fueled by a range of fictitious propositions."

Concludes Guy: "The more acceptable the drug becomes, the bigger our markets become -- we'll be able to treat a much, much wider range of patients."

On that last point, Grinspoon and Guy might agree. Regardless of the delivery system -- spray, pill, or vaporizer -- cannabis is slowly (some will say insidiously) making its way back into the medical mainstream. As it does so, says Grinspoon, "people will learn that it's harmfulness has been greatly exaggerated and its usefulness underestimated -- and the pressure will increase for drastic change in the way we as a society deal with this drug."