London - Campaigners for the legalisation of cannabis for medical use received a boost yesterday with the publication of research proving the drug can relieve pain.
Research by Mr Ian Meng and colleagues at the University of California, San Francisco, has isolated a brainstem circuit which acts in suppressing pain during the use of both morphine and cannabis.
They found that cannabis acted in a similar way to morphine in producing analgesia in this brainstem region, known as the rostral ventromedial medulla.