BEST POT FOR PAIN

British scientists have identified the variety of marijuana most
likely to relieve pain. Cannabis sativa, say chemists at GW
Pharmaceuticals, wins hands down. Normally grown for its flowers
rather than its resin, sativa produces "grass" rather than the solid
hashish made from cannabis indica. They found sativa to be botanically
distinct from rope-making hemp, resin-heavy indica and from the weaker
cannabis ruderalis.

The company last year won a government licence to develop
cannabis-based medicine and is growing 20,000 marijuana plants under
glass at a secret, police-approved location. It hopes to have a
cannabis-based prescription drug on the market by 2004.