61.   The foundation also advocates research into the use of prohibited drugs for medical purposes, including pain relief for the terminally ill.

62.   The flaw was the crossover of many women from a control group, which received narcotic pain medicine, into the epidural group because they wanted better pain relief.

63.   The rules must be drawn carefully, with strong safeguards for patients and room for aggressive pain relief.

64.   The researchers compared the women who had epidurals with women who had other kinds of pain relief or who had no pain medicine at all.

65.   The researchers found that the patients given the steroid reported pain relief four hours sooner, and eventually rated the relief as twice that reported by those given placebos.

66.   The researchers agree that the results are surprising largely because virtually all past experiments on the effects of pain and pain relief have been performed on men.

67.   The study did not evaluate how long pain relief lasted.

68.   The studies also found that infants circumcised without pain relief were more distressed than other babies when they were vaccinated four to six months later.

69.   The voters of California and Arizona, by large margins, approved ballot initiatives to let doctors recommend marijuana for pain relief and other medical purposes.

70.   They are also assuming a growing role in prescribing and monitoring pain relief.