Wang and colleagues performed a systematic review of safety studies of medical cannabinoids published over the past 40 years and found that short-term use appeared to increase the risk of non-serious adverse events.

Of all non-serious adverse events, dizziness was the most common (15.5%).

"We found that the rate of non-serious adverse events was 1.86 times higher among medical cannabinoid users than among controls," state the authors. "However, we did not find a higher incidence rate of serious adverse events associated with medical cannabinoid use." The authors note that 99% of the serious adverse events from randomized controlled trials were reported in only 2 trials, a fact the authors say suggests that more studies are required to further characterize safety issues.

LONDON, June 16 /PRNewswire/ -- Responding to reports in the media that Obecalp, a placebo pill for children, is due to be made available on the UK market, the Royal Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain's (RPSGB) Chief Scientist, Jayne Lawrence said:

"The RPSGB is concerned that this product is due to be made available on the UK market as a placebo pill to give to children.

"As a dietary supplement, the manufacturers have not been required to carry out clinical trials. Further, the use of this drug indicates that symptoms diagnosis and advice have not been sought from a qualified healthcare professional, which runs the risk of misdiagnosis.

"We are also concerned that giving a child the pill reinforces the wrong message - that tablets are the answer for all of life's aches and pains."

Activities such as aquaculture, shipping and recreational boating have led to an army of marine alien species hitchhiking around the globe.

And only you can stop them.

Queen's University Belfast is attempting to find out exactly where and how non-native species get a foothold in a new area. To do this it is asking for help from the public to record what they have seen.

Part of the Marine Aliens consortium, co-ordinated by the Scottish Association for Marine Science, the project will use the information gathered to look at how invasions can be slowed or preferably prevented. It is very difficult to eradicate an organism once it has become established in a new area.

Residents of the central and southern Midwest are crossing their fingers, saying their prayers, planning evacuations, and in some cases filling sandbags in preparation for the excessive water ravishing communities in Iowa and Wisconsin.

"The flood wave is propagating down the Mississippi River towards St. Louis at about the pace of a brisk walk," said Robert E. Criss, Ph.D., professor of earth and planetary sciences in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis. "Some areas north of St. Louis in Missouri and southern Iowa are bracing for the second worst flood in their history. This is serious water."

Criss is a geologist. One of his specialties is hydrogeology. He said that the floodwaters are projected to crest at St. Louis at 38 feet on June 22 or 23, marking the 11th time since the Civil War that St. Louis has reached that flood stage. During the flood of 1993 waters at St. Louis crested at 49.6 feet.

Today, at an international conference, a team of European astronomers announced they have found a triple system of 'super-Earths' around the star HD 40307, called such because they are more massive than the Earth but less massive than Uranus and Neptune (about 15 Earth masses.)

These super-Earths are around a rather normal star, which is slightly less massive than our Sun, and is located 42 light-years away towards the southern Doradus and Pictor constellations.

Looking at their entire sample studied with HARPS, the astronomers count a total of 45 candidate planets with a mass below 30 Earth masses and an orbital period shorter than 50 days. This implies that one solar-like star out of three harbors such planets.

When smoked, crystal meth rapidly achieves high concentrations in the brain without the burdens of the intravenous route. Stephen J. Kish PhD of the Departments of Psychiatry and Pharmacology, University of Toronto, and the Human Neurochemical Pathology Laboratory, Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, Toronto, reviews the actions of methamphetamine and explains the potential role of dopamine in methamphetamine craving.

Kish states that there is no medication approved for the treatment of relapses of methamphetamine addiction, but potential therapeutic agents targeted to dopamine and non-dopamine systems are in clinical testing.