GROW MEDICINAL CANNABIS LOCALLY: BROGDEN

New South Wales Liberal leader John Brodgen says he does not understand why cannabis for use in a trial to help pain and suffering among terminally ill people would have to be imported from overseas.

The Opposition leader has suggested the drug could be grown locally.

Premier Bob Carr said that plans for the trial had stalled because of delays with pharmaceutical companies in the UK developing an inhaler, his preferred method of supplying the drug.

He has raised the possibility of importing the drug from Canada, where it is already used for medicinal purposes, rather than growing it here.

He has written to Prime Minister John Howard, seeking his support.

But Mr Brogden says a home-grown solution might make the best economic sense.

"We should also trial the most effective way to manufacture and produce that, and that may well be in a very refined laboratory environment, in New South Wales, or somewhere in Australia," he said.