Published 20 February 2009, doi:10.1136/bmj.b738
Cite this as: BMJ 2009;338:b738

News

Seven patients in Germany are granted use of marijuana for medical purposes

Ned Stafford

1 Hamburg

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

German health authorities have allowed seven severely ill patients to buy marijuana at pharmacies for medicinal purposes. Permission was granted after a High Court ruling in 2005, and four years of discussions about the precise circumstances in which the drug can be used.

The first patient received approval in late January from the Federal Opium Agency, which is a division of the Federal Institute for Drugs and Medical Devices (BfArM), Germany’s medicines and drug regulator.

Winfried Kleinert, acting director of the agency, told the BMJ that six additional approvals have been issued since then, and more than 20 are still pending. He estimated that at least 1000 severely ill patients in Germany would qualify for medicinal marijuana. "We expect to be getting many more applications," Dr Kleinert said.

Primary users of medicinal marijuana would be patients with chronic pain, multiple sclerosis, and Tourette’s syndrome, he said. Also, patients with cancer . . . [Full text of this article]


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