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Prosecutors are taking a firm line on the supply of cannabis for pain relief to people with chronically painful conditions such as multiple sclerosis, despite the downgrading of the drug from class B to class C. Two crown court trials, one starting this week and one next week, will accuse four individuals of supplying illegal drugs through the organisations Bud Buddies and THCforMS (Therapeutic Help from Cannabis for Multiple Sclerosis). THCforMS says on its website that it has supplied 33,000 bars of cannabis chocolate to bona fide MS sufferers over the last five years. Mark Gibson, Lezley Gibson and Marcus Davies of THCforMS face a charge of conspiracy to supply cannabis in a trial that begins next Wednesday at Carlisle crown court.

The Crown Prosecution Service is to reveal whether any police officers will be charged over the fatal shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes on the Tube. The 27-year-old Brazilian was shot when police mistook him for a suicide bomber in south London on 22 July last year. Independent investigators demanded charges against three police officers. But it has been widely reported that no officers will be prosecuted, although the Metropolitan Police may be punished for breaching health and safety laws.

Billions of pounds are being spent on hospitals for the NHS that will not be suitable for the planned new patterns of care. A new report claims that the NHS could be left with “white elephants” — huge hospitals that will take 30 years to pay off, when the future of healthcare lies with smaller, more flexible units closer to where people live. The report says that awareness of this in the Department of Health has brought capital investment of all kinds to a shuddering halt just as new policies are changing the ways in which care will be delivered

No police officers are to be prosecuted over the fatal shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes at a Tube station. But the Metropolitan Police will be charged under health and safety laws. The Crown Prosecution Service said there was “insufficient evidence” to offer a realistic prospect of conviction against any individuals. Brazilian Mr Menezes, 27, was shot seven times in the head at Stockwell, south London, on 22 July 2005, after being mistaken for a suicide bomber. A surveillance team had been monitoring a block of flats in Tulse Hill, south London, where Mr Menezes lived, in the belief that a man wanted in connection with the previous day’s attempted suicide bombings in London resided there.

Hundreds of physiotherapy students and graduates will gather in Westminster today to demand urgent Government action over the jobs crisis facing thousands of newly qualified physiotherapists. The lobby of Parliament coincides with the release of a new survey from the Chartered Society of Physiotherapy (CSP), which indicates that 93 per cent of this year’s 2,529 physiotherapy graduates, trained at a cost of £73 million to the taxpayer, have no NHS job to go to this summer.

The General Social Care Council (GSCC) has welcomed the announcement by the Department of Health (DH) of a public consultation on proposals for change to healthcare professional regulation. The consultation follows the publication of Good doctors, safer patients a review by the Chief Medical Officer, Sir Liam Donaldson, following the Shipman Inquiry and The regulation of the non-medical healthcare professions, a review by the DH’s former Director General of Workforce, Andrew Foster.

BRITAIN’S most senior policeman is proposing that electronic chips should be surgically implanted into convicted paedophiles and dangerous sex offenders so they can be more easily tracked. Ken Jones, president of the Association of Chief Police Officers (Acpo), said the implants would be tracked by satellite, enabling authorities to set up “zones” from which sex offenders would be barred. These could include schools, playgrounds and former victims’ homes. Any attempt by the offender to enter the zones would trigger alarms in a monitoring centre, enabling police to act.

The former head of the Prison Service launched a withering attack yesterday on Tony Blair’s law-and-order record, accusing the government of lacking ‘the guts’ to admit that thousands of imprisoned children, mentally ill people and petty offenders did not belong behind bars. The extraordinary broadside from Martin Narey, who ran the service for seven years before leaving to head the children’s charity Barnardo’s last October, will increase pressure on the Home Secretary, John Reid, ahead of a major speech this week laying out plans to overhaul the criminal justice system.