The Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs will meet Tuesday to tackle if it will downgrade Ecstasy from its current classification of Class A drug to B or lower. Prof. David Nutt, new chairman of the council, indicated the popular pill should not be on the same classification as cocaine and heroin.

If the council will downgrade Ecstasy, dealers caught with the pill would be meted a 14-year prison term instead of a life sentence, while users would be jailed for five instead of seven years for possession

Toronto Transit Commission officials will announce Friday a new job requirement for employees of the transport company under its fitness for duty policy. All TTC workers will be made to take and pass drug and alcohol tests.

The new policy, reported by the Globe and Mail, was an offshoot of an investigation that a maintenance crew died on the job in 2007 while high on marijuana and after a bus operator was recently fired for drunk driving

Federal health officials have proposed new rules that would protect doctors, nurses and other healthcare workers who refuse to participate in abortions on the basis of their religious or personal beliefs.

The proposed regulation, published Wednesday in the Federal Register by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, allows federal health officials to pull funding from more than 584,000 hospitals, clinics, health plans, doctors' offices and other entities if they do not accommodate employees who refuse to undergo training for abortions or provide referrals for abortions on personal, moral or religious grounds

A medical disaster caused by a likely shortage of medical isotopes looms due to the shutdown of the Chalk River National Research Universal reactor.

Fifty percent of the global supplies of raw materials for medical isotopes are obtained from the Chalk River reactor, which was closed because it failed to meet licensing requirements that seven upgrades be fully operational by Dec. 31, 2005

Tobacco companies have manipulated the menthol levels in cigarettes in recent years to hook new young smokers, a new study claims. The report by researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health could fuel support for more tobacco regulation.

The new study states that young people tolerate menthol cigarettes better than harsher non-menthol cigarettes. The low-level menthol cigarettes make it easier to begin smoking but as smokers become more accustomed to menthol, they prefer stronger menthol sensations