HOSPITALS conducting one of the first major trials to see if cannabis can be used as a painkiller is due to start recruiting North-East patients in the next few months.

The hospital hopes to find patients due to undergo major surgery who are willing to try cannabis as an immediate post-operative pain treatment.

Some patients have claimed that smoking cannabis illegally eases their pain but it is only now that major scientific trials are taking place around the country.

If the large-scale research project is a success, it could lead to more cannabis-based medical drugs being developed.

In the North-East, patients at hospitals in Middlesbrough and York are likely to be involved.

Staff at James Cook University Hospital in Middlesbrough will observe how a group of volunteers react to being given one of four oral pain-relieving treatments.

Some will be given standardised cannabis extract or pills containing the active ingredient in cannabis, called tetrahydocannabinol.

Others will receive a standard pain-relieving drug or fake "placebo" pills.

Dr John Hughes, a consultant anaesthetist at James Cook hospital, stressed that when the trials get under way no patient will be left in pain.

"We will be looking at people who have had a fairly major operation, who have been on a morphine pump overnight," said Dr Hughes.

"The following day, some of the volunteers would be given a variety of drugs, including cannabis, and we would follow them to see if what they have been given alters their pain, whether there are side-effects and whether they request other painkillers."

Dr Hughes said pain control was paramount in the experiment.

"Nobody is going to be left in pain. We can't leave people like that - it would be completely unethical," he said.

"If this works, then it can hopefully be prescribed like any other drug, such as morphine, which is a strong painkiller," the consultant said.

"Pain specialists have an armoury of drugs but it is not huge and we are always looking to improve it," said Dr Hughes.

Around the UK, about 400 surgical patients will be recruited for this Medical Research Council-funded trial. With about 40 centres involved, about ten volunteers will be needed at each hospital.