American Pain Society. Summary: The growing body of evidence that marijuana (cannabis) may be effective as a pain reliever has been expanded with publication of a new study in The Journal of Pain reporting that patients with nerve pain showed reduced pain intensity from smoking marijuana. Researchers examined whether marijuana produces analgesia for patients with neuropathic pain.
Ron O'Neal, whose role as a fashionable and fearless drug dealer in the 1972 blaxploitation film Superfly made him a cult hero among many African Americans, has died. He was 66. Mr. O'Neal, who suffered from pancreatic cancer, died Wednesday in Los Angeles.
Howard (who died of a heart attack on February 22, 2000, at the age of 49), Elbert Wilkins (who died of a heart attack on December 13, 1992, at the age of 45), Willie Ford, Larry Demps and keyboardist James Mack Brown (who died on November 28, 2008, at the age of 58).