DW, GERMANY – A patient suffering from multiple sclerosis has been legally allowed to buy cannabis at the pharmacy under strict conditions. It’s the first time Germany has permitted the use of marijuana for medicinal purposes. Germany’ Süddeutsche Zeitung reported that the German Federal Institute for Drugs and Medical Devices for the first time approved the application of a 51-year-old woman suffering from multiple sclerosis to legally buy cannabis from a pharmacy to ease her symptoms. . . So far, cannabis has been illegal in Germany — only possession of small amounts of the drug are allowed — and its use for medicinal purposes limited to scientific studies and aims that “are in the public interest.”. . . In 2005, a court ruling threw into question the complete ban on cannabis for medicinal purposes. The German Federal Administrative Court ruled that the health of individual patients also lay in “the public interest.” That means that the Bonn-based Federal Institute for Drugs and Medical Devices now has to consider each application for use of cannabis for medicinal purposes on a case-by-case basis. http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,2144,2746463,00.html