Researchers have been given the green light to go ahead with clinical trials but must first overcome a pungent problem: perfecting a bogus joint. Health Canada will "spend several million dollars" funding clinical trials and longer-term research on the therapeutic value of smoking pot, the health minister announced on 6 October.

The clinical trials, said a government release, are to involve 250 patients in a "double-blind, randomized design." Double-blind tests require giving one test group the real goods and another a placebo, or fake, to determine the drug's effectiveness. Both the Community Research Initiative of Toronto and the Vancouver- based Canadian HIV Trials Network will handle clinical studies comparing smoked cannabis with a pill containing only the plant's most active ingredient, THC. Both organizations work with HIV- positive or AIDS patients.

(Source: Associated Press of 5 October 1999 )