Cannabis
Medical cannabis-based products are available in about half of US states. JACK GUEZ/AFP/Getty Images

A Welsh grandmother has hailed the effect cannabis has had on her battle with constant pain brought about by Multiple Sclerosis (MS), saying she even sprinkles the drug on her cheese and toast as a treat.

Sue Cox, 65, from Cwmbran, has spoke out to vent her frustration that to successfully battle the condition she has had to resort to obtaining the drug illegally as she finds it works a lot better than the pills prescribed to her.

"The thing for MS that they try is nerve-blocking medications that people use for epilepsy," she said.

"To be quite honest the side effects were too bad and for me they don't work. There were a lot of them I tried and then of course they give you morphine, which I didn't like to take and it didn't actually stop the pain either.

"I smoked cannabis as a 17 or 18-year-old and basically I knew how it made me feel then. It relaxes you. That's it in a nutshell.

"Your muscles feel totally tight all the time and then you will have a spasm which is quite painful and you want to try and avoid that. And I find that the cannabis can help with the tension in the muscles."

Ms Cox was diagnosed with MS in 2014 and has been prescribed medication by a string of different doctors.

Cannabis is commonly used to treat MS in the United States in states that have legalised its use medicinally or generally, however in the UK the drug remains illegal.

The MS Society, based in the UK, issued a survey in 2014, which found that one-in-five people would use the drug to battle their symptoms. A post on its website describes why the drug can be effective.

"The relief comes from chemicals in cannabis called cannabinoids. The main ones are tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), which gets you 'high', and cannabidiol (CBD), which doesn't.

"There's a medically approved cannabis-based treatment called Sativex, but it doesn't work for everyone. In most parts of the UK you can't get it from the Health Service. That's because the good it does is seen as too small to be worth what it costs. And for many people it's too expensive to buy privately."

Cannabis doesn't have to be smoked. It can come in the form of an oil, even butter, which can be used in recipes.