Pubdate: Fri, 4 Aug 2000
Source: Financial Times (UK)
Copyright: The Financial Times Limited 2000
Contact:  1 Southwark Bridge, London, SE1 9HL, UK
Fax: +44 171 873 3922
Website: http://www.ft.com/
Author: Vanessa Houlder

MARIJUANA MAY BE JUST THE THING FOR JOINTS

The medicinal use of marijuana remains controversial. But the evidence is 
piling up concerning the medical effectiveness of some of its constituents. 
The latest set of findings suggest that one of its components could ease 
the stiff joints caused by arthritis.

Research supported by the Arthritis Research Campaign suggests that 
cannabidiol - a natural constituent of cannabis that has no mind-altering 
effects in it natural form - may be useful for treating rheumatoid 
arthritis and other chronic inflammatory diseases.

Scientists at the Kennedy Institute of Rheumatology in London and Hebrew 
University in Jerusalem discovered that cannabidiol suppressed the immune 
response of mice with a disease resembling human arthritis. It protected 
the mice from severe damage to their joints and markedly improved their 
condition, according to the Proceedings of the National Academy of 
Sciences, a US journal.

* As if farmers did not have enough to worry about, new evidence suggests 
that climate change will have a particularly marked effect on agricultural 
land. Research published today concludes that farming may make grasslands 
more vulnerable to the effects of global warming by disturbing the overall 
make-up of their ecosystems.

A team of British scientists mimicked the effects of global warming on 
plots of land using heated cables, hoses with spray nozzles and automated 
covers that slid over the plots when it rained.

The researchers, who are mostly from the University of Sheffield, tested 
two areas of limestone grasslands: an ancient sheep pasture in Derbyshire 
and a field in Oxfordshire that was, until recently, used for arable crops.

The results were worrying. They found that the more fertile, recently 
farmed land in Oxfordshire was much more vulnerable to the effects of 
climate change - with marked variations in the amount and composition of 
the vegetation - than the undisturbed land in Derbyshire. As more land goes 
into production to feed the world's expanding population, "human impacts 
may be making whole landscapes more responsive to climate change", say the 
scientists in today's edition of Science, the US journal.
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